Yes, Indian tribes typically require a Vendor License from vendors, often only if sales exceed a certain dollar value. Fees are usually on a sliding scale determined by the dollar value of annual sales and may have minimum and maximum caps. Although I can't speak for other tribes, in our case, the Vendor License requirement is triggered at $25,000 in sales.
It gets a bit more complicated for one-shot deals, since there is a minimum basic fee for new vendors while the license renewal fee is based on previous year aggregate sales. The basic fee for a first time sale is quite small, no matter how large the proposed sale is, but the renewal fee can be as much as 10 or more times the basic fee. In that case, if we aren't considering buying more than $25,000 from that vendor in future years, we tell them they don't have to renew their license at the end of the year. We can still buy up to $24,999 from that vendor but if sales in any year exceed $25,000, they will be informed that they must renew their license, at a cost determined by previous year's sales to us.
The fees and requirements vary from tribe to tribe.
<edit> By the way, if the vendor(s) include an allowance for it on their bid, it typically doesn't affect the competitiveness of that bid since all vendors would have to pay the same fee if they won the project. We do try to make new vendors aware of the fee structure so that they all can consider it during the bidding process.
Our license fee also includes separate line items for background checks of all vendor company "principals". If you can't survive a full background check, don't bother bidding. I believe these checks are nearly universal.