Plain-language guides to European public procurement - how it works, and how to win.
Cover story
Reviewed October 2, 2026
Public buyers increasingly award points for environmental performance, labour conditions and social value. Where the directive allows these criteria, which labels and certifications count, the evidence that scores, and the mistakes that turn a good intention into a rejected bid.
Read the guide 6 min read
Contents
TED (Tenders Electronic Daily) publishes hundreds of thousands of public contracts a year from every EU country. How it works, what gets published there, and how to actually find things in it.
A plain-language guide to the Common Procurement Vocabulary - the EU-wide codes that classify every public tender, and how to use them to find the right contracts.
A step-by-step introduction for small businesses bidding on European public contracts for the first time - from finding the right notice to submitting a compliant offer.
A contract notice packs everything that matters - buyer, scope, money, deadlines, criteria - into a standard structure. Learn to extract the go/no-go facts in five minutes.
The euro amounts that decide whether a public contract follows EU-wide rules and appears on TED - the current 2026-2027 thresholds, what they mean for bidders, and what happens below them.
What the procedure type on a tender notice actually means for you - who can bid, in how many stages, whether you can negotiate, and how to adapt your strategy to each one.
Frameworks decide years of public purchases in one tender. How call-offs and mini-competitions work, what the 4-year rule means, and how to win work once you're on the framework.
Most public contracts in Europe are too small for the EU rules and are published only on national and regional portals, under simpler procedures. What changes below the thresholds, how each country publishes, why these contracts suit smaller companies, and how to find them without watching thirty portals.
Buyers split large contracts into lots so smaller companies can compete. How lots work, the limits on how many you may bid for and win, how combined bids are scored, and why a single-lot strategy wins more often than it looks.
A dynamic purchasing system is a framework you can join at any time; an electronic auction is a live price competition after evaluation. How each works, the deadlines the directive fixes, when a buyer may use them, and how to compete in a market that never quite closes.
Before a bid is read, the bidder is checked for convictions, unpaid taxes, insolvency, misconduct and past failures. Which grounds are mandatory, which are the buyer's choice, how long they last, and how self-cleaning lets a company bid again.
Public contracts get extended, enlarged and renegotiated, but only within limits the directive sets. The de minimis rule, the fifty percent ceiling, review clauses, replacement of the contractor, and the modification notices that tell competitors what is happening.
Public buyers increasingly award points for environmental performance, labour conditions and social value. Where the directive allows these criteria, which labels and certifications count, the evidence that scores, and the mistakes that turn a good intention into a rejected bid.
Most bids don't lose on quality - they lose on avoidable formal errors. The nine most common disqualifiers in European tenders, with the checks that prevent each one.
Two different tests decide every tender - whether you may win, and whether you do. How exclusion, selection and award criteria work, what MEAT scoring means, and how to bid to the formula.
The European Single Procurement Document lets you bid with a self-declaration instead of certificates. What it contains, how to fill it in without mistakes, and when the real evidence is due.
An award notice names who won, for how much, against how many bidders. Learn what each field means, where the numbers mislead, and how to turn a year of awards into pricing and competitor intelligence.
Public buyers score price by formula, and the formula decides how much a euro of discount is worth. How to read the scoring method, benchmark against past awards, build a cost base you can defend, and avoid the two classic pricing mistakes.
A public buyer must question a price that looks too low and may reject it if the explanation fails. What triggers the question, which explanations the law accepts, how to write one that survives, and how to use the rule against a competitor.
The directives let you meet selection criteria with another company's turnover or references, bid as a group, or subcontract part of the work. What each route requires, what the buyer may demand, and how to structure a team that survives evaluation.
Every tender has a window in which bidders may ask the buyer questions, and every answer becomes part of the tender for everyone. What you may ask, the deadlines the law sets, how to phrase a question that fixes a restrictive specification, and what to do when the answer changes the deal.
A losing bidder has rights and a short clock. What the buyer must tell you, how the standstill period works, the review bodies in each country, which grounds succeed, and how to decide within days whether a challenge is worth it.
Open tenders
A country with a guide
Also in the register, no guide yet: Moldova 11,027 Switzerland 3,047 Bulgaria 1,881 Sweden 1,650 Austria 1,259 Belgium 1,238 Lithuania 1,187 Latvia 927 North Macedonia 820 Slovakia 509 Denmark 500 Ireland 493 Slovenia 447 Croatia 434 Estonia 427 Hungary 334 Luxembourg 303 Malta 130 Cyprus 89 Iceland 53 Liechtenstein 9 Armenia 6 San Marino 5 Bosnia & Herzegovina 4 Kosovo 2 Jersey 1