TED (Tenders Electronic Daily)

Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) is the official online platform for publishing European public procurement notices, operated by the Publications Office of the European Union. Available at ted.europa.eu, TED is the electronic version of the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) and publishes approximately 700,000 procurement notices per year from contracting authorities across all EU Member States, EEA/EFTA countries, and GPA signatory countries. Publication on TED is mandated by Article 51 of Directive 2014/24/EU for all above-threshold procurement and serves as the legal trigger for tender deadlines, transparency obligations, and the right of economic operators across the EU to access procurement opportunities on equal terms.

How It Works

TED functions as the central hub of the European procurement information ecosystem, connecting contracting authorities who publish opportunities with economic operators who seek them.

Notice publication flow. The publication process follows a standardized path:

Notice preparation. The contracting authority prepares the procurement notice using the eForms standard. Since October 2023, all above-threshold notices must be submitted in eForms XML format. National e-procurement platforms typically provide user interfaces that generate eForms-compliant notices.
Submission to TED. Notices are submitted through authorized eSender systems (national e-procurement platforms or accredited transmission services). Each EU Member State typically has one or more designated eSenders. The eSender transmits the notice to TED's reception system via a standardized API.
Validation and processing. TED validates the notice against the eForms schema, checking for mandatory fields, format compliance, and basic data consistency. Notices that pass validation are queued for publication.
Publication. Notices are published within 5 calendar days of receipt (or 48 hours for urgent procedures). Each published notice receives a unique TED notice identifier in the format [year]-[sequence number] (e.g., 2026-123456).
Dissemination. Published notices are available through multiple channels: the TED web portal (search and browse), the TED API (machine-readable access for data platforms and procurement intelligence services), RSS feeds, and email alerts.

Notice types published on TED include:

Contract notices (calls for tender): The formal invitation for economic operators to submit tenders.
Prior information notices (advance announcements): Early signals of upcoming procurement.
Contract award notices (results): Published after contract award, revealing the winner, price, and number of tenders received.
Corrigenda: Corrections to previously published notices.
Change notices: Amendments to ongoing procedures.
VEAT notices: Voluntary transparency notices for direct awards.
Modification notices: Published when an existing contract is modified.
Design contest notices and results
Qualification system notices (for utilities)
Concession notices
Social services notices (under the light touch regime)

TED API. The TED API is the primary programmatic interface for accessing procurement data. The API has evolved through several versions:

API v2 (legacy): XML-based, supporting the old TED XML schema. Deprecated since the eForms transition.
API v3 (current): The eForms-based API, supporting search queries, notice retrieval in XML and JSON formats, and bulk download. The API supports complex queries filtering by publication date, country, CPV codes, NUTS regions, notice type, and other parameters.

Languages. TED notices are available in all 24 EU official languages. Each notice must include a translation of the title and summary in all official languages (auto-translated if the authority does not provide manual translations). The full notice text is typically available in the procurement language and, optionally, in additional languages provided by the contracting authority.

TED data coverage and scale:

Approximately 700,000 notices published per year
Notices from all 27 EU Member States, plus EEA/EFTA countries (Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein), Switzerland (some notices), and GPA partner countries
Above-threshold procurement is mandatory; below-threshold publication is voluntary but increasingly common
Historical archive extends back to 1993 (in varying degrees of data quality and structure)
Estimated total procurement value published on TED: EUR 700+ billion per year

Legal Framework

Article 51 of Directive 2014/24/EU establishes the obligation to publish notices in the Official Journal (electronically via TED). This is the foundational legal provision that makes TED the mandatory publication channel for EU procurement.

Article 52 establishes priority of publication: notices may not be published at national level before the date of dispatch to TED, and national publication must not contain additional information beyond what is in the TED version. This prevents information asymmetries that would disadvantage cross-border bidders.

Article 53 requires that full procurement documents be made available electronically and free of charge from the date of publication of the contract notice on TED.

Article 51(2) sets the publication timeline: notices are published within 5 calendar days of dispatch to TED (48 hours for urgent procedures submitted electronically).

Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1780 (the eForms Regulation) defines the electronic forms used for TED publication. It specifies the business terms (BT codes), data types, mandatory/optional fields, and XML schema for each notice type. The eForms standard replaced the previous Standard Forms (Implementing Regulation 2015/1986) in October 2023.

Regulation (EU) 2022/2560 (Foreign Subsidies Regulation) introduced a new dimension to TED data, requiring notification of foreign financial contributions above certain thresholds in large public contracts and concessions published on TED.

The Open Data Directive (Directive 2019/1024) classifies public procurement data as "high-value data," requiring Member States to make it available in open, machine-readable formats. TED data is published under open data principles, accessible through the TED API and bulk download, supporting the development of procurement analytics, transparency platforms, and academic research.

For the United Kingdom post-Brexit, TED is no longer the mandatory publication platform. UK procurement is published on the Find a Tender Service (FTS) at find-tender.service.gov.uk. However, some UK notices continue to appear on TED where required under international agreements.

Practical Examples

Example 1: Daily Monitoring. An IT services company configures the TED API to retrieve all contract notices published in the last 24 hours matching CPV codes 72000000-72999999 (IT and related services) in NUTS regions covering Germany, France, and the Benelux. The API returns approximately 30-50 notices per day, which the company's bid management team reviews to identify relevant opportunities within their technical scope and geographic reach.

Example 2: Competitive Intelligence. A construction company analyzes contract award notices on TED to build a competitive landscape: which competitors won contracts in its target regions, at what prices, and from which buyers. By querying TED for contract award notices in CPV division 45 (construction work) in NUTS regions DE1-DE9, the company builds a database of contract wins, enabling price benchmarking and identification of key competitors.

Example 3: Market Sizing. A management consultancy uses TED bulk download data to estimate the total addressable market for environmental consulting in the EU. By analyzing contract notices and contract award notices with relevant CPV codes (90700000 - environmental services, 71313000 - environmental engineering consultancy) over the past three years, the consultancy quantifies the market size at approximately EUR 2.3 billion per year, identifies the top 20 contracting authorities by procurement volume, and pinpoints the countries with the fastest-growing environmental procurement spend.

Key Considerations for Suppliers

TED is your primary opportunity source for EU above-threshold procurement. Any supplier targeting government contracts in Europe must have systematic TED monitoring in place. Manual browsing of the TED website is adequate for occasional searches but insufficient for a structured business development approach. Use the TED API or a procurement intelligence platform to automate monitoring based on CPV codes, NUTS regions, contracting authority names, and value ranges.

Understand TED data structure for effective searching. TED notices contain structured data fields (business terms) that enable precise filtering. The most important fields for opportunity identification are: CPV codes (what is being procured), NUTS codes (where the contract will be performed), estimated value (how large the contract is), notice type (contract notice vs. prior information notice vs. award), and deadline (how much time you have to respond). Learning to use these filters effectively dramatically reduces the noise in your opportunity pipeline.

Use contract award notices for market intelligence. TED publishes the results of every above-threshold procurement: who won, at what price, how many tenders were received, and the evaluation criteria used. This data is invaluable for: understanding buyer preferences, benchmarking your pricing against competitors, identifying opportunities where incumbents may be underperforming, and preparing for re-competitions when existing contracts expire.

Monitor prior information notices for early signals. Prior information notices are published months before the formal contract notice, signaling upcoming procurement. These early signals give you time to research the buyer, build relationships, identify potential consortium partners, and prepare your response before the formal tender period begins. Many suppliers ignore prior information notices, missing a valuable competitive advantage.

Be aware of TED data quality limitations. While TED is the most comprehensive source of EU procurement data, it is not perfect. Some notices may have incomplete or incorrect data (missing CPV codes, wrong NUTS codes, unclear descriptions). National platforms may provide additional detail not captured in the TED version. For high-value opportunities, always cross-reference the TED notice with the contracting authority's own procurement platform to ensure you have the most complete and current information.

OJEU (Official Journal of the European Union) — The official legal publication of which TED is the electronic procurement supplement.
Notice — The individual procurement documents published on TED.
eForms — The electronic format used for all notices published on TED since October 2023.
Contract Notice — The most important notice type on TED, formally inviting tenders.
Contract Award Notice — The results notice published on TED after contract award.
CPV — The classification system used to categorize procurement by subject matter on TED.
NUTS — The geographic classification system used to code the place of performance on TED.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is TED access free?

Yes. Access to TED — both the web portal and the API — is completely free for all users. There are no registration fees, subscription costs, or per-query charges. This is a deliberate policy choice: the EU funds TED as a public good to ensure maximum transparency and equal access to procurement opportunities across the single market. Third-party procurement intelligence platforms may charge for value-added services (alert management, analytics, enriched data), but the underlying TED data is always freely available.

How far back does TED data go?

TED has published procurement notices electronically since 1998, with some data extending back to 1993. However, the quality, structure, and completeness of historical data varies significantly. Pre-2014 data uses the old XML schema and may have limited structured fields. Post-October 2023 data uses the eForms standard with richer, more standardized data. For most practical purposes (market analysis, competitor tracking, trend identification), data from 2018 onward provides reliable structured information.

Do all EU countries publish the same proportion of procurement on TED?

No. There is significant variation in publication rates across EU Member States. Countries with higher public spending, more centralized procurement, and more mature e-procurement systems (such as France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands) publish more notices on TED. Smaller countries and those with less developed e-procurement infrastructure may publish a lower proportion of their total procurement. Additionally, the proportion of below-threshold procurement voluntarily published on TED varies widely. The European Commission regularly publishes monitoring reports analyzing publication rates and procurement transparency across Member States.