CPV codes explained: the EU's product vocabulary and how to find yours
CPV is the eight-digit classification every EU public tender uses; find the codes buyers use for your products and you can search the market by category.
Tomasz Kowal · Data and public procurement
Updated 16 October 2026 · 5 min read
Public buyers in the EU do not describe what they buy in free text. They pick a code from a shared list, and that code is printed on every notice, from the first announcement to the award. If you know which codes describe your products, you can read the whole public market for your category in any EU country. If you do not, you are searching a library by guessing titles.
Putting it simply: CPV is a numbered tree of products, works and services. The first digits give the broad family, later digits narrow it down, and a ninth digit is a check. Your job is to find the three to six codes buyers actually use for products like yours, then search award notices by those codes.
Where CPV comes from
The Common Procurement Vocabulary was established by Regulation (EC) No 2195/2002; TED describes it as "a single classification system for public procurement aimed at standardising the references used by contracting authorities and entities to describe the subject of procurement contracts". The current version was adopted by Regulation (EC) No 213/2008 and has been in use since 17 September 2008; TED's own guidance says the 2008 version is the one to use for filling in notices and for searching TED.
The CPV "consists of a main vocabulary and a supplementary vocabulary". The main vocabulary is the tree you will use. The supplementary vocabulary is a set of alphanumeric codes that can be added to describe a contract more precisely (materials, intended use, and so on); buyers use it less consistently, so build your search on the main vocabulary.
How the code is built
A main-vocabulary code has eight digits plus a check digit, written as XXXXXXXX-Y. The structure, as TED describes it:
- the first two digits identify the division (
XX000000-Y); - the first three digits identify the group (
XXX00000-Y); - the first four digits identify the class (
XXXX0000-Y); - the first five digits identify the category (
XXXXX000-Y); - each further digit "gives a greater degree of precision within each category";
- the ninth digit verifies the previous ones.
Trailing zeros mean "everything below this level". So a code ending in 000000 is the whole division, and a code with no trailing zeros is the most specific entry.
Four examples with their official labels
| Code | Label (Regulation (EC) No 213/2008) | Level |
|---|---|---|
| 18100000-0 | Occupational clothing, special workwear and accessories | group |
| 33100000-1 | Medical equipments | group |
| 39100000-3 | Furniture | group |
| 39130000-2 | Office furniture | class |
Read the furniture pair together: 391 is the group "Furniture", and 3913 is the class "Office furniture" inside it. Below the class come categories for shelving, filing, display and computer furniture, and below those the individual items. A buyer tendering for a new administrative building will often use 39130000-2 for the whole lot; a buyer re-equipping one department may go two levels deeper.
The same logic applies to lighting (31500000-1, "Lighting equipment and electric lamps") and to any other category: start at the group, then look one or two levels down.
How buyers actually use it
Each lot in a notice carries a main CPV code and may carry additional ones. In practice:
- Buyers choose the code; nobody checks it. The same product can be filed by one buyer under the specific item and by another under the class or even the division. Search at the group or class level first and narrow only when the volume is too large.
- Function beats material. CPV follows what a thing is for in the buyer's world, not what it is made of. A hospital bed sits with medical equipment, not furniture; a school chair sits with furniture, not education. A manufacturer who makes "steel products" will find its customers under five different divisions.
- Mixed lots take one main code. A lot for "furniture and fittings for a new library" gets one main code, usually the largest value item. Your product may be inside a lot whose code is not yours.
- Services and works have their own branches. A fit-out contract may be coded as works even though it contains your product. Supply searches will not find it.
How to map your products to CPV
- Describe each product line as a buyer would. Not "ergonomic task chair series X", but "office seating". Not "technical textile", but "workwear" or "protective clothing".
- Find the group. Search the vocabulary for the plain word and note the eight-digit group code (
XXX00000). - Walk down one or two levels. Note the class and category codes that match. Stop when the labels become more specific than your product range.
- Check against real notices. Search a year of award notices in one country for each candidate code. If your kind of product appears in the lot titles, the code is right. If the lots are all something else, drop it.
- Add the neighbours. Look at the additional CPV codes on the lots you found; buyers often reveal a second code they use for the same thing.
- Keep the list short. Three to six codes typically cover a product range. Twenty codes means you have mapped the division, not your products.
If you have a brochure or a web page rather than a product taxonomy, there is a shortcut: Cresques has a materials reader that takes a brochure PDF or a website, recognises the products in it and suggests CPV categories to start from. Treat the suggestions as step 2 and 3 above, then do steps 4 to 6 yourself.
Two things CPV cannot do
It cannot tell you brands. A lot coded "office furniture" says nothing about whose chairs were delivered. And it cannot tell you the private market: CPV exists for public procurement, so the codes map what institutions buy, not what the trade sells to offices and shops. For most manufacturers that is still the best public window into a foreign market, because the companies winning public lots in a category are usually the same companies selling it privately.
What this means for a manufacturer
Your CPV list is the key to every public data source in the EU. Spend an afternoon on it once, verify it against real notices, and you can then ask the same question in any country: who won contracts under these codes in the last year, for which buyers, and when do those contracts end. That question is the start of a distributor search, a competitor check and a timing plan, all from one short list of numbers.
