What is TED, and why it's not enough on its own
TED is the EU's official tender journal and the best single source of European tenders. What it covers, what it leaves out, and how to use it well.
If you search for "European public tenders", you will find TED quickly. It is the right place to start. It is also where many suppliers stop — and that is where they begin missing tenders.
What TED is
TED (Tenders Electronic Daily) is the online version of the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union. When a public buyer in the EU runs a procurement worth more than the EU thresholds, it has to announce it there. TED publishes hundreds of thousands of notices a year, free of charge, and anyone can search them.
A notice on TED usually tells you:
- who is buying (the contracting authority) and in which country;
- what they are buying, in words and as CPV codes — the EU's standard classification of goods and services;
- the procedure (open, restricted, negotiated) and the deadline;
- the lots, if the contract is split;
- where to find the tender documents, which are usually on the buyer's own platform, not on TED.
Beyond calls for tenders, TED also publishes prior information notices (announcements of planned purchases), contract award notices (who won and at what price) and changes to earlier notices. Award notices are a good way to learn who buys what, and which competitors win.
What TED covers well
- Large contracts across all EU member states, in one place and one format.
- Defence and security procurement above its thresholds, run under the EU's defence procurement directive.
- History. Past notices stay searchable, which helps with market research.
- Open data. Notices can be downloaded and searched automatically, which is what monitoring services build on.
What TED leaves out
This is the part that costs suppliers opportunities:
Contracts below the EU thresholds. Most public contracts, by number, are too small to reach TED. They are published only nationally — on Lithuania's CVP IS, Poland's e-Zamówienia, France's BOAMP and so on — in the national language. For a supplier of equipment, spare parts or services, these smaller contracts are often the most winnable ones.
Defence purchases kept out of open procedures. EU law allows member states to exclude procurement that touches their essential security interests from the usual rules. Some of it is never advertised publicly; some is announced only to a limited circle of companies.
Countries outside the EU. The United Kingdom has used its own Find a Tender service since leaving the EU. Norway, Ukraine, the United States, Canada, Australia and other markets each have their own systems.
International organisations. NATO agencies and other multinational buyers publish on their own sites.
The documents themselves. TED carries the notice, but the specifications and requirements are on the buyer's platform, often only in the original language.
Using TED well
- Search by CPV code as well as by words. Buyers do not always describe things the way you would, but they do pick a CPV code. Find the few codes that fit your products and search by them.
- Don't rely on English. Notices are written in the buyer's language. TED helps with translation, but the tender documents and much of the detail stay in the original language. A search in English finds only part of what is there.
- Read award notices. They show who buys your kind of product, how often, and who wins.
- Set up saved searches, then check what they miss: compare them with a few national portals from time to time.
TED plus what?
For most suppliers, a sensible setup is TED plus the national portals of your key markets plus the agencies that matter to you. That is several sources in several languages, each with its own search. It is manageable for one or two countries. Beyond that, most companies either accept that they will miss tenders or use a service that collects everything into one feed.
For the bigger picture of where tenders appear, see How to find defence tenders in Europe.