Entering Lithuania through distributors: Baltic dealers, CVP IS tenders, the CPO LT catalogue, opt-out e-mail

Lithuania suits a manufacturer that wants a compact euro market with one national procurement system, a central catalogue that many public buyers order from, and a first contact that can lawfully be made by e-mail to a company, provided the message offers an easy way to refuse.

Putting it simply: Lithuanian hospitals, municipalities, schools and state bodies buy mostly from local distributors and wholesalers that bid in Lithuanian, deliver and service what they sell. Every public procedure runs through one state system, CVP IS, larger awards also appear on TED, and many standard products are ordered through the catalogue of the central purchasing body CPO LT. Buyers expect product information in Lithuanian, documents ready for an electronic procedure, a company that can be checked in the Register of Legal Entities, and invoices sent as structured e-invoices. Since 22 April 2026, e-mail marketing to a legal person needs no prior consent if it gives a clear, free and easy way to refuse, so a short, well-identified e-mail to the distributor's general address is a reasonable first step.

How the market buys

Local distributors, with Baltic and Nordic neighbours behind them

In technical and professional categories the usual route is a Lithuanian distributor that holds stock, prepares bids and services the installed base. In our analysis of TED award notices for supplies (November 2026), 97.5% of the 31,779 awards in the 9,237 notices from buyers in Lithuania since November 2023 went to companies registered in the country; the share was the same, 97.5%, in the twelve months to early November 2026. Those local winners include distributors and dealers as well as manufacturers' own local subsidiaries (see our methodology). A foreign manufacturer usually enters by being listed with them.

The foreign companies that do win directly come mainly from the neighbourhood. In the same notices, companies registered in Latvia won 206 awards, followed by companies from Sweden (114), the Netherlands (72), Germany (62), Estonia (60) and Poland (54). Some distributors cover Lithuania alone, others the three Baltic states together, so territory is one of the first things to settle.

Where the volume is

Medical equipment, pharmaceuticals and personal care products (CPV division 33) dominate: 3,911 of the notices in our data, with 98.4% of their awards going to Lithuanian companies. Transport equipment (division 34, 970 notices), furniture, furnishings and cleaning products (39, 577), laboratory and precision equipment (38, 509), software (48, 508) and chemical products (24, 359) follow. The local share is lower in transport equipment (94.0%), laboratory equipment (93.7%) and software (92.7%), which is where foreign winners appear most often.

The central catalogue

The Law on Public Procurement (Viešųjų pirkimų įstatymas, No. I-1491) lets contracting authorities buy from or through a central purchasing body, and obliges them to do so when the goods, services or works available in the catalogue of the central purchasing body set up by the Government meet their needs and they cannot buy more efficiently another way; a buyer that does not use the catalogue must give its reasons in the procurement documents (Article 82(1) and (2)). That body is CPO LT, a public institution that carries out centralised purchasing nationally. According to CPO LT, a supplier enters its electronic catalogue by taking part in a CPO LT procedure published in CVP IS; selected suppliers then sign a framework agreement or join a dynamic purchasing system, and afterwards only submit offers for individual orders. For a manufacturer, the question for a prospective distributor is whether your category is bought through the catalogue and whether the distributor is already a catalogue supplier.

Tenders and fairs shape the distributor's year

A distributor's first order for a new brand is often tied to one tender or one catalogue round, so the useful question is who wins your CPV codes, for which buyers. Trade fairs at the LITEXPO centre in Vilnius are another meeting point; for dentistry, for example, Baltic Days of Dentistry is held there on 22 and 23 October 2027. For other industries, see the trade fairs and congresses by industry.

The proof Lithuanian buyers expect

Documents in Lithuanian

Since 1 January 2026, Article 17 of the State Language Law, as amended by Law No. XIV-3007, provides that information about goods sold and services provided is given in the state language and goods are labelled in it; the state language is also required in the names and descriptions of Lithuanian products and services. In procurement, notices must be published in Lithuanian (other official EU languages may be added, but only the buyer's text is authentic), and procurement documents are prepared in line with the State Language Law (Law on Public Procurement, Articles 34(7) and 35(5)). Expect a distributor to ask for instructions, labels and technical sheets in Lithuanian, with a complete English technical file behind them. A first approach in English is possible; Lithuanian material carries further with buyers and end users.

Conformity evidence, ready in electronic form

CE marking under the EU legislation for your product is the baseline; expect to be asked for the declaration of conformity and the test reports behind it. Procedures run electronically in CVP IS, so have certificates, declarations and data sheets ready as files your distributor can attach to a bid.

A company record that can be checked

Lithuanian legal entities are entered in the Register of Legal Entities (Juridinių asmenų registras) kept by the state enterprise Registrų centras, and each has a company code (įmonės kodas) alongside its VAT code. Registrų centras publishes data from that register as open data under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Ask a prospective distributor for its company code and check it, and have your own register extract and VAT number ready for theirs.

Invoicing

Under Article 22(3) of the Law on Public Procurement, invoices under a public contract are accepted and processed according to Article 6(4) of the Law on Financial Accounting: an electronic invoice that meets the European e-invoicing standard may be sent by any means the supplier chooses, while one that does not meet the standard may be sent only through the state information system "E. sąskaita". Government Resolution No. 405 of 27 April 2022 sets the detail: from 1 January 2025, public-sector entities and other contracting authorities receive invoices that meet the European standard, and no later than that date those invoices are sent through the Peppol network, unless the sender has no technical means to do so, in which case the invoice data are entered in E. sąskaita. Invoices that do not meet the European standard are accepted through E. sąskaita only where the standard format cannot carry the details that Lithuanian VAT law requires. The resolution text we could read is the consolidated version from 12 December 2023. In practice your distributor invoices the hospital or municipality and needs an e-invoicing set-up; if you sell to a public buyer directly, so do you. Check the current rules with your tax adviser.

Payment terms

A written public contract must set out the payment arrangements, and the payment periods must meet the requirements of Article 5 of the Lithuanian law on preventing late payments in commercial contracts (Law on Public Procurement, Article 87(2)(4)). That law transposes Directive 2011/7/EU, under which a public authority pays within 30 calendar days of receiving the invoice, a period that may be longer only if expressly agreed and objectively justified by the nature of the contract, and never beyond 60 days (Article 4(3) and (6)); member states may also allow up to 60 days for public healthcare entities (Article 4(4)). As of 8 November 2026 we could not open the consolidated Lithuanian text of Article 5 to confirm how Lithuania applied these options, so check contract terms with your adviser.

Where public demand is visible

One state system, CVP IS

The Law on Public Procurement defines the Central Public Procurement Information System (Centrinė viešųjų pirkimų informacinė sistema, CVP IS) as the state information system in which procurement notices and reports are submitted, procedures are carried out, and procurement plans, documents and contracts are published (Article 2(4)). The current system is at viesiejipirkimai.lt; the earlier portal at cvpp.eviesiejipirkimai.lt still shows older notices. Two rules make it a dependable record of who wins:

• A notice of the conclusion of a contract or framework agreement in an international procurement is published no later than 30 days after the contract is concluded (Article 33(1) and (2)).
• The buyer publishes in CVP IS the winning tender, the written contract or framework agreement and any amendments within 15 days of conclusion, and before the first payment, except for confidential information and certain purchases made without a published notice (Article 86(9)). This also applies to small-value purchases (Article 25(2)).

Value bands

Lithuanian procurement is layered by estimated value excluding VAT (Law on Public Procurement, consolidated version in force from 1 October 2025 to 30 June 2026, the latest full text we could open; newer versions apply from 1 July 2026, and the amending law behind the July version, Law No. XV-933 of 14 May 2026, changes only Article 95, on the Public Procurement Office's functions).

• International procurement: at or above the EU thresholds (Article 4(1)). From 1 January 2026 these are €140,000 for supplies and services bought by central government authorities and €216,000 for other contracting authorities (Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2152); CVP IS publishes the figures. These notices appear on TED, and may be published in CVP IS only after the EU Publications Office has published them (Article 34(9)).
• Simplified procurement: below the EU thresholds (Article 4(2)).
• Small-value procurement: simplified procurement of goods or services with an estimated value below €70,000, or works below €174,000 (Article 4(3)).

TED coverage

Lithuanian award notices on TED in the eForms format start on 28 November 2023 in our data, so the analysis above covers November 2023 to early November 2026: 21 notices in the last weeks of 2023, 2,509 in 2024, 3,114 in 2025 and 3,593 so far in 2026, from 344 buyers, naming 1,870 companies.

Lawful first contact

Article 81 of the Law on Electronic Communications (Elektroninių ryšių įstatymas, No. IX-2135) governs direct marketing, and its current wording has applied since 22 April 2026 (Law No. XV-815 of 16 April 2026), so older guidance requiring consent from companies is out of date. The general rule is that e-mail and other electronic communications may be used for direct marketing only with the subscriber's prior consent. No such consent is needed where the subscriber or registered user is a legal person, but the legal person must be given a clear, free and easily exercisable opportunity to refuse further direct marketing. For every recipient, a marketing e-mail must not hide the sender's identity and must give a valid address to which the recipient can send a request to stop. The State Data Protection Inspectorate (VDAI) supervises these provisions and can fine certain breaches.

Article 81 does not say how an address in a named employee's name, such as vardas.pavarde@company.lt, is to be treated. The cautious route is to write to the company's general address (info@ or sales@) and use named contacts after the distributor replies; data protection law applies to any named person's details you process. Identify your company in full, say briefly what you make and why it fits the distributor's range, include a working reply address and a one-line way to refuse, and record and respect every refusal. This is a summary, not legal advice; check your outreach plan with your adviser. The Lithuania market page sets out the rule and the steps.

What this means for a manufacturer

• Find the distributors through TED and the results and contracts in CVP IS, and ask whether your category is bought through the CPO LT catalogue.
• Check each candidate in the Register of Legal Entities by company code, and have your own register extract and VAT number ready.
• Prepare Lithuanian labels, instructions and technical sheets, with the English technical file and conformity documents ready as electronic files for a bid.
• Make sure invoicing to public buyers can run as a European-standard e-invoice through Peppol, or through E. sąskaita where that is allowed.
• Agree territory early: Lithuania alone or the three Baltic states, and expect competition from Latvian, Swedish, Dutch, German, Estonian and Polish suppliers.
• Make the first contact by e-mail to the company's general address, with your full identity and an easy way to refuse, or meet distributors at a fair.

Where Cresques fits

Create a market for Lithuania, choose your CPV categories (or let the materials reader suggest them from a brochure or website), and Cresques shows the companies named in TED award notices for those categories, with personal details removed, along with the trade fairs where your industry meets. Lithuania is one of the countries with a register list, so the market view also shows other companies registered in your industry that have not won a public contract. A company profile shows every award with value and buyer and an AI-researched role, distinguishing an independent distributor from a manufacturer's own subsidiary; for Lithuanian companies whose filed accounts we import, paid plans also show their financials. The first message is drafted in Lithuanian, with an English version, for e-mail with an opt-out; you send it yourself. E-mail alerts on new awards come with paid plans. Below the EU thresholds, Cresques does not show Lithuanian awards; search the results and contracts in CVP IS yourself by CPV code.