In this guide 6 sections
If European public procurement has a centre, it is TED - Tenders Electronic Daily. It is the online supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union (the "S series"), run by the Publications Office of the EU in Luxembourg, and it is where every larger public contract in Europe must be advertised.
Understanding what TED Tenders Electronic Daily: the EU's official journal for public contracts above the EU thresholds. Full entry is - and just as importantly, what it is not - makes you a much faster tender hunter.
What gets published on TED
EU directives require buyers to publish on TED every contract at or above the EU thresholds: roughly speaking, supplies and services from €140,000-€432,000 depending on the buyer, and works from €5.4 million. That covers:
- Contract notice The announcement that a buyer is now accepting bids: the notice you can act on. Full entry - the announcement that a tender is open. This is the document you bid against.
- Prior information notice An early warning that a buyer intends to tender, months before the contract notice. Full entry (PINs) - early warnings that a purchase is coming, sometimes months ahead. Gold for pipeline planning.
- Contract award notice The notice that says who won and for how much, published after the decision. Full entry - who won, and usually for how much. Priceless competitive intelligence.
- Modifications and corrigenda - changed deadlines, corrected documents, extended contracts.
Beyond the mandatory notices, many buyers publish voluntarily: below-threshold contracts they want wider competition for, and notices from countries outside the EU (EEA members, candidate countries, organisations like the EIB).
The volume is enormous: TED publishes hundreds of thousands of notices per year, in a mix of all 24 official EU languages.
Reference
EU thresholds, 2026-2027
| Contract | Article | Threshold |
|---|---|---|
| Public sector Directive 2014/24/EU | ||
| Supplies and services, central government Art. 4(b) | Art. 4(b) | €140,000 |
| Supplies and services, regional and local authorities Art. 4(c) | Art. 4(c) | €216,000 |
| Works Art. 4(a) | Art. 4(a) | €5,404,000 |
| Social and other specific services Art. 4(d) | Art. 4(d) | €750,000 |
| Utilities: water, energy, transport, post Directive 2014/25/EU | ||
| Supplies and services Art. 15(a) | Art. 15(a) | €432,000 |
| Works Art. 15(b) | Art. 15(b) | €5,404,000 |
| Social and other specific services Art. 15(c) | Art. 15(c) | €1,000,000 |
| Concessions Directive 2014/23/EU | ||
| Works and services concessions Art. 8(1) | Art. 8(1) | €5,404,000 |
Amounts net of VAT, in force from January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2027. Set by Commission Delegated Regulations (EU) 2025/2152, 2025/2150, 2025/2151. Checked against the acts on October 1, 2026.
Who runs it and what it costs
TED is operated by the Publications Office of the European Union. Access is free - searching, reading, downloading. There are no paid tiers; anyone telling you that you must pay to see EU tenders is selling you convenience, not access.
The underlying data is open too. Notices are reusable under the Commission's open-data decision (2011/833/EU), which is what allows services like Aperlena to aggregate, translate and enrich them - always linking back to the official notice, which remains the only legally authoritative version.
The eForms revolution (why old advice looks different)
Since 2023-2024, notices are submitted in a structured XML format called eForms The EU's structured notice format since 2023: the reason notices now carry machine-readable dates, values and codes. Full entry . For bidders, the practical effects are:
- Notices are more structured - fields like CPV code The EU's common vocabulary for what is being bought: an eight-digit code every notice carries. Full entry , NUTS region The EU's standard regions, used to say where a contract is performed. Full entry (where the work happens), deadlines and values are machine-readable, so search engines and alert services have become far more precise.
- The layout changed. If you learned to read the old form templates ("Section II.2.4"), the new notices reorganise the same information; the anatomy of a contract notice guide covers the current structure.
How notices are identified
Every TED notice has a publication number like 123456-2026 - the running
number within the year. The tender itself also carries the buyer's own file
reference. When you contact a buyer with a question, quote their reference;
when you search TED or talk to other bidders, the publication number is the
universal key. On Aperlena, both are shown on the tender page.
The honest limitations of TED
TED is indispensable, but it has rough edges every bidder should know:
- Language. A German hospital publishes in German. The eForms structure is multilingual, but the meat of the notice - the description, the requirements - is usually in the buyer's language only. (This is exactly why Aperlena generates summaries in six languages.)
- It only starts at the threshold. The majority of European contracts by number are below-threshold and live on national portals, not TED. If you only watch TED, you are watching the top of the pyramid.
- Documents live elsewhere. TED carries the notice; the actual tender documents (specifications, draft contract, forms) sit on the buyer's own platform, linked from the notice. Getting used to the dozen or so common national platforms is part of the craft.
- Search is literal. TED's own search finds what you type, in the language you type it. Synonyms, related CPV codes and cross-language matches are on you - or on the tools you use.
A practical TED workflow
- Search by CPV, not keywords. CPV codes are language-independent, so one code finds the same need in Portugal and in Finland.
- Filter by deadline, not publication date. What matters is how much time you have left to respond - sort by closing date and work backwards.
- Read award notices in your niche. Who wins, at what price, against how many bidders? Six months of award notices tell you whether a market is worth entering.
- Set up alerts. Checking manually stops happening after week two - an automated saved search that emails you new matches is the only sustainable way to follow the flow.
TED gives Europe a single window onto its public spending. Learn its logic once, and every public market on the continent starts speaking the same language.
Sources
- TED, "About TED" (Publications Office of the European Union)
- TED, legal notice (reuse of the notices)
- Commission Decision 2011/833/EU on the reuse of Commission documents
- Directive 2014/24/EU, Articles 48, 49, 50 and 51 (notices and their publication)
- Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1780 (eForms)
- Decision 2009/496/EC on the organisation and operation of the Publications Office
The figures and rules in this guide were checked against these sources on October 2, 2026.