Where do I find European public tenders?
The usual answer is "on TED". For most public contracts that is wrong: TED starts at the EU thresholds. Here is what each source shows — with measured numbers, and with each source's limits, ours included.
The dividing line: EU thresholds
Above €216,000 (supplies and services) or €5.404m (works), contracts must be tendered EU-wide and appear on TED. Below that, national procurement law applies and the notice exists only on that country's or region's portal.
By count, most public contracts sit below the thresholds. In our corpus: 20,116 of 59,777 open tenders — around 34% — never appear on TED.
The sources compared
| Source | Shows | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| TED (ted.europa.eu) | All EU countries above the thresholds, free, official | Nothing below the thresholds; descriptions in the original language; no eligibility guidance |
| National portals | Complete for their country, including below threshold, free | 108+ separate portals, each with its own search and language; some require registration |
| Commercial providers | Curated alerts, support, often sector depth | Paid, usually annual contracts; sub-threshold coverage rarely evidenced |
| Friedrich & Clement | 59,777 open tenders from 27 countries in one search, 20,116 of them below threshold; titles and descriptions in five languages; eligibility criteria in plain language | An aggregator, not a submission point — you always submit on the buyer's portal. Coverage varies by country; the gaps are listed openly on /en/facts |
Which portals sit behind the search
Selected portal families read daily — the full list with volumes per source is on the facts page:
cosinex-Vergabemarktplätze (DTVP, Brandenburg, Rheinland-Pfalz, Niedersachsen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) · service.bund.de · evergabe.NRW · oeffentlichevergabe.de · meinauftrag.rib.de (Berlin, Bayern Staatsbau, GMSH Schleswig-Holstein, Kommunen) · HAD — Hessische Ausschreibungsdatenbank · AI Vergabeplattform (Sachsen, Bremen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saarland) · evergabe-online.de (Thüringen)
Status per source
57 sources are read daily. Currently without new notices for more than three days:
- anac-it — nothing new for 44 days (last 10/09/2026)
- ted-sk — nothing new for 6 days (last 20/10/2026)
- base-pt — nothing new for 5 days (last 21/10/2026)
- uvo-sk — nothing new for 5 days (last 21/10/2026)
For these countries the corpus may lag behind the portal. We check daily; the note disappears as soon as the source delivers again.
Frequently asked
All figures are measured and updated daily; methodology and known gaps: /en/facts. Statements on procurement law are general information, not individual legal advice.