Financial Management

Small Business Certification

The City of Long Beach adopted a Small Business Enterprise (SBE), Very Small Business Enterprise (VSBE), and Local Small Business Enterprise (LSBE) Ordinance in June 2011 to encourage more small businesses to participate in City contracts. Certain procurements are assigned project specific contracting goals requiring prime contractors to subcontract with a combination of Long Beach Certified SBE, VSBE or LSBE Businesses or show good faith efforts. In order for a small business to count towards goal attainment, they must have the Long Beach Small Business Enterprise (LBSBE) certification, regardless of state or federal SBE certification status. The LBSBE certification can be obtained through our bidder's database registration.

The City determines SBE eligibility by utilizing federal U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) size standards either by the average gross annual revenue or by the number of employees, based on North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) codes. To see if your business qualifies, view the SBA’s Table of Small Business Size Standards.

In addition, for a small business to be eligible for certification, the small business must be a for-profit business and must meet the following requirements as set forth from the California Department of General Services:   

• Be independently owned and operated
• Not dominant in field of operation
• Principal office located in California;
• Owners (officers, if a corporation) domiciled in California; and,
• Including affiliates, be either a business with 100 or fewer employees; a manufacturer with 100 or fewer employees; or, an average annual gross receipts of $15 million or less, over the last three tax years (unless higher size standards are authorized by the SBA Table of Small Business Size Standards for the NAICS applicable to your business)
  

VSBE eligibility is determined utilizing maximum allowable annual gross revenues consistent with those of the State of California’s Department of General Services “micro-business” designation. The current guidelines for this designation can be accessed on the California Department of General Services website.

LSBE eligibility shall be determined by the criteria established in Municipal Code section 2.84.030, subdivisions (1) and (2), in addition to the SBE eligibility criteria described above.

If you are a small business, you must register and obtain SBE certification through the City's online bid management system. If you are a prime contractor who has a small business you would like to subcontract out to, be sure to encourage them to apply for a Long Beach Small Business Certification. 

Contractors can search our bid management system for registered LBSBE businesses by doing an advanced vendor search on the portal and checking off the "Long Beach Small Business Enteprise" option as show in the screenshot below.


LBSBE Documents:

• SBE Participation Instructions   
• LBSBE Program Acknowledgement (Attachment A)
• SBE-2 Form - SBE Committment Plan (Attachment B)
• SBE Good Faith Efforts Cover Sheet (Attachment C)
• SBE Monthly Utilization Report