To upgrade a cidb grading you need one contract, completed in the last five years, worth at least the track record minimum of the grade you want. Add the turnover and capital the table asks for from grade 3 up, and a document pack the cidb says it finalises within 21 days. The grade follows the work. The upgrade starts on site, not on the portal.
That is the whole method, and it is why "how do I get from 5CE to 6CE" has a short answer and "how do I get from 5CE to 9CE" has a long one.
The number that decides it
Every grade on the cidb's requirements-for-grading table carries two figures. Its ceiling is the largest tender you may bid. Its track record is the largest contract you must already have completed in the past five years.
The minimums, as SME South Africa reproduces them from the cidb table, run R130 000 for grade 2, R450 000 for grade 3, R900 000 for grade 4 and R1,5 million for grade 5. Then R3 million for grade 6, R9 million for grade 7, R30 million for grade 8 and R90 million for grade 9.
Set those against the ceilings and the ladder draws itself. A grade 5 contractor may bid up to R10 million, so the R3 million job that grade 6 asks for is inside reach, and so is the R9 million job for grade 7. A grade 6 contractor is capped at R20 million and grade 8 wants a completed R30 million contract. From grade 6 up there is no skipping a rung on your own registration.
From grade 3 the table adds best annual turnover and available capital, where capital means the funds presumed available to start a new project. Grade 3 asks for R1 million turnover and R100 000 capital. Grade 6 asks for R6,5 million and R1,3 million. Grade 9 asks for R200 million and R40 million. Those columns are what stop a firm that finished one large job on a thin balance sheet from grading up on it.
What the five adverts on the board are asking for
The reason to read the table this month is that five adverts on the eTenders portal, all open on 21 September, each draw the line in a different place.
- Gauteng Roads and Transport, DRT04/08/2026. A three-year panel of civil engineering contractors, 6CE to 9CE. Briefing 23 September at 10:00, marked compulsory on the portal, closes 6 October at 11:00.
- Johannesburg Market, INFRA-OP-005 2026/2027. A 36-month panel across engineering disciplines at 4EB/EP, 4ME, 4SO, 4CE, 4GB or 4SN, each "or higher". Closes 5 October at 11:00.
- Ugu District Municipality, UGU-07-1734-2026. The Margate storm-damage, wastewater treatment works and effluent main rebuild, "9CE or higher". Closes 16 October at 12:00; the compulsory briefing was held on 17 September, so it is shut to anyone who was not there.
- Waterberg TVET College. Stormwater drainage and paving at 3GB or higher (WTVETC/202602), and a trade-test centre conversion at 4GB or higher (WTVETC/202601). Both close 1 October at 11:00, and both compulsory briefings were held on 16 September, so these two are now closed to anyone who missed them.
- South Cape TVET College. Roof maintenance at the central office, "1GB or higher" (RFQ AB 23/2026). Closes 1 October at 11:00, briefing 22 September at 11:00, marked compulsory on the portal.
Read as a ladder, that is a 1GB roof job, a 3GB stormwater job, a 4GB conversion and a six-class panel at grade 4. Above them sit a 6CE floor on Gauteng roads and 9CE for a district's wastewater works. A general builder at grade 1 can price the South Cape roof. The completion certificate from that job is the track record for grade 2, and the Waterberg jobs are the next two rungs.
Magalies Water's published procurement plan envisaged a rural water panel advertised on 15 September at "CIDB Grading 6 CE or M". By 21 September it had not appeared on the portal, and the plan cuts the line there, so what follows the M is unknown until the advert does.
The two things that take longer than the application
The application itself is a pack, and the cidb's new-grade application page lists it. Company registration documents, director identity copies, shareholder certificates, a tax compliance status PIN and the track record itself. EB work needs an electrical licence beside them. Turnover is proved with stamped bank statements no older than three months, or a VAT 201 and statement of account. Complete packs are finalised within 21 days, the cidb says.
Twenty-one days is not the timeline, though. The timeline is set by two slower things.
The first is the contract. If the largest job you have completed is R2 million and you want grade 6, the upgrade is the length of one R3 million contract plus its final account. A R3 million civils job is months of work, and the certificate that proves it lands after practical completion, not at award.
One more condition from the same cidb page. Projects awarded from 1 April 2021 must be registered on the cidb Register of Projects before they count as track record. A job that never went on the register is a job you cannot grade up on.
The second is the class. A registration is valid only for the class in which you demonstrated competence, and a track record in CE says nothing about GB. A 5CE firm wanting the Johannesburg Market panel at 4ME has to show mechanical work, whatever its civils history. Multiple classes are allowed, each on its own track record.
The other route up, and its limit
A joint venture can bid above your own grade, and the cidb has published an undated notice that its "new and improved" Joint Venture Grading Designation Calculator is back online, at a new address. The notice says nothing about what changed. The rule that matters has not: the calculator's own terms require the lead partner to be registered "not lower than one level below the required grading designation in the class of construction works under consideration". The working of that is in this bank's piece on the JV designation, in insights.
The honest arithmetic
A 5CE contractor asking about 9CE is asking for at least three completed contracts of rising size and three application cycles. That is only if the first job is a R9 million one that clears grade 7 in a single step. Otherwise it is four. The first rung is one R3 million job. Nobody can shorten that on paper.
Arabella verifies a contractor's grade and class once against the register and keeps the record current. The day the upgrade lands, the firm is visible to clients at its new grade without re-proving it for every package. The mechanics are on the contractor page.
On Monday
Find the completion certificate and final account for the largest contract you have finished since September 2021. Write its value beside the track record minimum of the grade above yours.
If the value clears it, start the pack. If it does not, the upgrade is that next job, and the five adverts above are where work of that size is being advertised this month.
