Guides / How to find government tenders
How to find government tenders
Governments must publish most contracts they want to buy, so every tender you could win is public. The hard part is that notices are spread across dozens of official portals, written in many languages and classified with codes rather than plain words. This guide shows where to look and how to search well.
Reviewed 8 Oct 2026 by the Bidstage team.
Where tenders are published
Each jurisdiction has an official place where notices must appear. Start with the ones that cover the buyers you can serve:
| Market | Official source | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| European Union | TED (ted.europa.eu) | Every contract above the EU thresholds from all 27 member states, plus Norway, Iceland and others |
| EU member states | National portals (BOAMP, e-Zamówienia, TenderNed and others) | Contracts below the EU thresholds, in the national language |
| United Kingdom | Find a Tender and Contracts Finder | Procurement Act 2023 notices; lower-value English opportunities |
| United States (federal) | SAM.gov Contract Opportunities | Federal opportunities over $25,000 |
| Canada (federal) | CanadaBuys | Federal tender notices in English and French |
| Development projects | World Bank procurement notices | Bids and expressions of interest for bank-financed projects |
Regional and city governments often use their own portals too. Our per-country guides list the main national sites for each country we cover.
Search by classification code, not just keywords
Buyers describe what they want in their own words and language, so a keyword search misses a lot. Every notice also carries classification codes, which are the same in every language:
- CPV (Common Procurement Vocabulary) codes in the EU, UK and Switzerland. Eight digits plus a check digit, for example 72000000 for IT services.
- NAICS codes and product or service codes (PSC) in the United States.
- UNSPSC codes on CanadaBuys.
Pick the two to five codes that describe your work at the division or group level, search with them, and add a few keywords in the local language for anything the codes miss.
A weekly routine that works
- Save a search on each portal that matters to you, filtered by your codes and regions.
- Check new notices two or three times a week. Short deadlines (often 30 to 35 days in the EU open procedure, less for urgent or lower-value contracts) mean a notice found late is often a notice lost.
- Open the full documents for anything promising and run a quick bid/no-bid check before investing time.
- Look at contract award notices too: they show who wins in your field, at what price, and when contracts will be re-tendered.
Use prior information and early engagement
Many buyers publish a prior information notice or preliminary market engagement notice months before the tender. Responding to market engagement lets you shape the requirement and gives you time to find partners. In the UK, planned procurement notices and pipeline notices serve the same purpose.
Let software do the reading
Reading every portal by hand takes hours a week. Bidstage reads TED, Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, SAM.gov, CanadaBuys and World Bank notices several times a day, scores each open tender against your capability profile and shows why it matched, with the official deadline and value. You can browse all open tenders by country and category for free.
Questions
Is it free to access government tenders?
Yes. TED, Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, SAM.gov and CanadaBuys are free to search, and the tender documents are usually free to download after registration. Paid services save time by collecting and filtering notices.
How far in advance are tenders published?
In the EU open procedure the minimum time for tenders is 35 days from the contract notice (30 days if tenders are submitted electronically, shorter with a prior information notice or in urgent cases). Lower-value national procedures can close within days.
Can a foreign company bid on public tenders?
Usually yes. EU rules forbid discrimination against bidders from other member states, and the WTO Government Procurement Agreement opens covered contracts to suppliers from member countries. Some contracts are reserved, for example US small business set-asides or defence work.