How government tenders work, and who can apply

A government tender is how a public buyer buys works, goods or services. You can apply when that procedure is open to economic operators and the company can evidence the selection criteria in the notice. A title that describes your work does not decide either point.

The procedure decides who may submit

Read the procedure before the description of the work. Under Directive 2014/24/EU, an open procedure lets any interested economic operator submit a tender by the deadline. A restricted procedure starts with a request to participate, and only the invited operators send a full tender. Competitive dialogue, and the competitive procedure with negotiation, are for contracts the buyer cannot specify completely at the start. A framework agreement appoints suppliers, and the call-offs come later. The notice names which of these applies. Other regimes, including the UK Procurement Act 2023 for new UK procurements, use their own names for the same kind of choice.

The value decides where the notice is published

For 2026 and 2027, Directive 2014/24/EU requires EU-wide publication when the estimated value, net of VAT, reaches €140,000 for most supplies and services bought by central government, €216,000 for sub-central authorities, and €5,404,000 for works. Social and other specific services in Annex XIV use €750,000. Those notices go to Tenders Electronic Daily. Utilities and defence have separate directives and different figures. Below the applicable threshold, national rules apply, and the notice often stays on a national portal.

In the United Kingdom, new procurements under the Procurement Act 2023 are published on Find a Tender from 24 February 2025, including notifiable below-threshold contracts, except below-threshold notices in Scotland. Contracts Finder still holds below-threshold notices for procurements that started under the older English rules. SAM.gov publishes contract opportunities from US federal contracting offices. A state, a city or a school district is not required to use it.

A contract financed by the World Bank is procured by the borrower under the regulations for that project. Notices appear on the borrower’s channels and on the Bank’s project pages. That is not the Bank buying for itself. A Horizon Europe call on the Funding & Tenders Portal is a funding procedure unless the document itself is a procurement.

Who the notice will accept

The applicant is the economic operator named in the tender. Where the notice allows it, that can be a company, a partnership or a sole trader. A group may submit one tender when the procedure allows a consortium. Article 57 requires exclusion for certain final convictions, including corruption and fraud, and for unpaid taxes or social security contributions established by a final decision. Article 20 allows reserved contracts only for sheltered workshops and integration operators, and only when at least 30 percent of the employees are disabled or disadvantaged workers. A job advertisement is not a tender.

Before the deadline you need the registration the submission portal asks for, and the means of proof the notice lists. In an EU procedure the preliminary evidence is usually the European Single Procurement Document, with certificates called for from the bidders the buyer asks. The portal that takes the file is the one named in the notice. An account on TED or Find a Tender does not file the offer.

Use this order on the first pass

• Procedure, submission deadline, time and timezone, and the portal that receives the file.
• Exclusion grounds, then selection criteria. Write down the figure, the period and the proof for each line.
• Whether another entity may cover a line you do not meet, and whether that entity must perform the work.
• Award criteria only after the mandatory lines are met, or can be met on the conditions in the notice.

This example is fictional. A city publishes an open procedure for a three-year maintenance service with an estimated value of €400,000, net of VAT. That sits above the 2026 sub-central services threshold, so the notice is on TED. Selection asks for average annual turnover of €700,000 over three years, two similar contracts in the last five years, and ISO 9001 held by the bidder. The company has the turnover and the certificate, and one similar contract. The reference line is not met. Article 63 allows reliance on another entity’s professional experience only where that entity will perform the services those references relate to, and the bidder can prove the commitment. A named partner, with no commitment and no qualifying contract, does not close the line.

What the buyer does after the deadline

A late tender is out. The buyer checks exclusion and selection, then scores the tenders that remain, on price or on price and quality as the notice states. For procedures covered by the EU remedies rules, the contract may not be signed until at least 10 calendar days have passed from the day after the award decision is sent electronically, with stated exceptions. A World Bank-financed contract that uses the Bank’s standard documents has a different clock: ten business days after the borrower sends the notification of intention to award, and that period does not apply to every method, including direct selection.

How Tender Town keeps the notice and the lines together

Tender Town keeps a notice together with the documents and later changes it fetches, and lists the requirements from that file. Fit analysis compares those lines with the company evidence saved on a scope. A line the file does not cover stays unknown.

See an example