Bidding on EU tenders: how TED works and who can actually compete

Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) is the supplement to the EU’s Official Journal where every public contract above the EU thresholds must be advertised. It is the largest single source of open public-procurement opportunity in the world, and it is free to read. The difficulty is not access — it is that TED publishes notices, in a controlled format, and reading them correctly is a skill.

1. Read the notice type first

The single most useful thing on a TED notice is what kind of notice it is, because it tells you whether there is anything to bid for:

• Contract notice — a live opportunity. This is the one you want.
• Prior information notice (PIN) — an intention to buy, sometimes months ahead. No bid yet, but the best possible time to talk to the buyer.
• Contract award notice — already decided. Useless for bidding, invaluable for intelligence: it names the winner and usually the value.
• Corrigendum — a change to a live notice. Always read it against the original.

Award notices are worth a deliberate habit. Before bidding into an unfamiliar buyer or country, read a year of their awards: who wins, at what value, and whether the same two incumbents take everything.

2. Know which procedure you are in

1. Open — anyone may submit a full tender. Most common, most competitive.
2. Restricted — you first apply to be selected, then only the shortlist is invited to tender. Two deadlines, and the first one is the one people miss.
3. Competitive procedure with negotiation / competitive dialogue — for complex requirements where the solution is not fully specified up front. Long, expensive, usually for established suppliers.
4. Framework agreement — you are bidding to join a panel, not to win a contract. Work is then called off, sometimes with no guaranteed volume at all. Read the estimated value and the number of suppliers before investing in the bid.

3. CPV codes are how you find work, and how work finds you

Every notice is tagged with Common Procurement Vocabulary codes. They are the reliable way to filter TED, far better than keyword search — buyers describe the same thing in twenty-four languages, but the CPV code is the same in all of them. Identify the handful of codes that describe your work and monitor those.

4. The ESPD

The European Single Procurement Document is a self-declaration that you meet the exclusion and selection criteria — you are not bankrupt, have paid your taxes, hold the required capacity. You declare at bid stage and prove it only if you are the likely winner. Two consequences: submitting is lighter than it looks, and a careless declaration you cannot later evidence loses the contract at the worst possible moment.

5. Can a non-EU company win?

Often, yes — but read the notice rather than assuming. Access can depend on whether your country has an agreement with the EU covering procurement, and some contracts carry security or origin restrictions. In practice the harder barriers are commercial: language, an EU-established entity for contracting and VAT, local presence for delivery, and demonstrable references acceptable to the buyer. A partnership or consortium with an established local supplier is the usual route in, and it is explicitly permitted.

6. Practical discipline

• Translation. Notices are published in the buyer’s language with a summary translated. The tender documents themselves are usually only in the original language, and you are expected to bid in it.
• Standstill period. After the award decision there is a mandatory pause before signature, during which an unsuccessful bidder may challenge. If you lost narrowly, this is the window — it is short.
• Ask for a debrief. Buyers must give reasons. It is the cheapest bid intelligence you will ever get.

FreeTender indexes TED notices alongside development-bank and national sources, so you can watch EU opportunities in the same place as the rest — see how to find the right tenders faster.