If your team can deliver local or smaller assignments, start by identifying the buyers that purchase that work. Then learn where those buyers announce opportunities and how suppliers can enter their procurement routes. The objective is a usable shortlist—not the largest possible feed.
This guide is about discovery. For an EU procurement, “below threshold” depends on the applicable regime and estimated value, not your intended bid price. Use the threshold-calculation guide when you need to establish the legal classification. Do not apply EU amounts to UK or Swiss domestic procurement.
Do not turn a source label into a legal conclusion
EU supplier guidance distinguishes EU-level rules and national requirements. A lower-value purchase is not automatically exempt from all procurement obligations, and it is not necessarily publicly advertised.
Nor is TED limited categorically to above-threshold notices. The official eForms FAQ confirms that below-threshold notices can be published there. Conversely, not finding a contract on TED does not prove it is below threshold: search coverage, identifiers, timing and the applicable regime still need checking.
Keep two separate fields in your shortlist: where the record was found and whether its threshold classification is verified. Use “not established” when the value or regime is missing.
Build a source map for ten target buyers
Choose one service line and the delivery area your team can support. List ten municipalities, public institutions or other buyers with a plausible need. Confirm each buyer's official website before following a link to a procurement platform.
| Field | What to record | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer and delivery area | Legal buyer name, public body type and service locations | Headquarters alone does not establish where the work happens. |
| Official starting page | Buyer procurement URL and linked notice service | A directory or aggregator may not contain all current instructions. |
| Opportunity route | Open notice, supplier-list application, qualification route or another published process | A historical contract is not an invitation to submit a bid. |
| Documents and response | Designated platform, access requirements and submission method | Notice discovery and bid submission can happen in different systems. |
| Search scope | Service terms, relevant CPV codes where used and buyer names | One classification or keyword can miss differently described work. |
| Maintenance | Named owner, review date and amendment-check routine | A source map needs to be maintained after the first search. |
If no public opportunity is visible, use the buyer's published supplier guidance or contact channel to ask where opportunities and supplier-registration information are available. Do not treat this as permission to bypass a competition or approach evaluators outside the published process.
Use the country guide for exact source and rule checks
| Target market | Existing guide | Question to resolve there |
|---|---|---|
| France | French tender source map | Which announcement service and buyer profile apply? Keep advertising exemptions, adapted procedures and formal procedures distinct. |
| Netherlands | TenderNed supplier playbook | Where are notices, documents and the actual response route? |
| Ireland | eTenders supplier playbook | What is advertised, and is the relevant competition or framework accessible? |
| United Kingdom | UK supplier playbook | Which regime, notice service and devolved or buyer platform apply? |
These are starting routes, not a guarantee of complete local coverage. Follow the dated official sources linked in each guide. This page does not maintain a second national threshold table or claim every country follows the same publication rule.
Screen smaller opportunities with the same discipline
Before committing bid effort, check:
- Can we enter? Mandatory references, certifications, supplier-list or framework admission, permitted partners and any other eligibility conditions.
- Can we deliver? Sites, service hours, staff, travel, equipment and implementation dates.
- Can we respond? Documents, accepted language, question deadline, submission deadline and authorized platform access.
- Does the work make commercial sense? Bid cost, delivery cost, margin, payment terms, options and contractual risk. A small headline value does not guarantee a cheap response.
- What is missing? Record unclear scope or value explicitly and use the published clarification route.
The bid/no-bid checklist owns the full decision. Do not invent a win probability from the number of bidders or assume local publication makes the competition easy.
Worked example: maintenance within a service radius
Illustrative example, not a live tender: a maintenance business can support ten public buyers within its operating area. Its initial broad search includes completed awards, nationwide service contracts and one current local equipment-maintenance requirement. The team separates historical records, rejects delivery it cannot support and opens the local requirement's documents. It checks references, site access, response times and submission instructions before assigning an estimator. The contract's legal threshold category stays unconfirmed until the relevant evidence is available.
Test usefulness before expanding coverage
Start with a manageable monitoring schedule and a named reviewer. Compare your searches against known relevant procurements, inspect a sample of rejected results and investigate what caused misses. Add sources when they produce useful, distinct records—not merely because they increase the portal count.
Track unique opportunities after reconciling repeated publications, qualified opportunities, documented rejection reasons and time spent finding and screening them. Measure bid outcomes only for a defined cohort with known results. Keep missing outcomes and unverified threshold classifications visible; do not extrapolate a market share from your feed.
Continue with the procurement monitoring workflow. If evaluating Duke, bring your buyer map and known notices to a demonstration, and ask which sources and updates can be shown. This guide does not certify Duke's local coverage, a share of the market or improved win rates.
Official general guidance checked: 13 September 2026. Next review: 13 December 2026, or sooner after a source or rule change. The worked example is illustrative; applicable national rules and the specific procurement govern each decision.