What is TED (Tenders Electronic Daily)? The EU's public procurement journal explained
TED is the online Supplement to the EU Official Journal, where public buyers must publish tenders and awards above the EU thresholds.
Tomasz Kowal · Data and public procurement
Updated 8 November 2026 · 3 min read
TED (Tenders Electronic Daily) is "the online version of the 'Supplement to the Official Journal' of the EU", the place where public buyers in the European Union and the European Economic Area publish their tenders and contract awards above the EU thresholds. It is free to search, it publishes on every working day, and every notice can be downloaded as structured data.
Putting it simply: if a hospital in Lyon or a city council in Gdańsk buys more than a set amount of goods, the law says the purchase has to be announced on TED, and so does the result. That makes TED one public record, in one format, of who sells what to public institutions across the EU and EEA.
Where it comes from
- The obligation to publish. Directive 2014/24/EU defines three notices in Articles 48 to 50: the optional prior information notice, the contract notice and the contract award notice. Article 51(2) says these notices are "transmitted by electronic means to the Publications Office" and "published in accordance with Annex VIII", "not later than five days after they are sent", with the cost borne by the Union. Award notices must be sent "not later than 30 days after the conclusion of a contract" (Article 50(1)).
- Languages. Under Article 51(3) a notice is published in full in the language the buyer chooses, with a summary in the other official languages. TED says information about every notice is available in the 24 official EU languages.
- The format. Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1780 sets the standard forms, known as eForms, used for notices in the Official Journal. The old forms of Regulation (EU) 2015/1986 were repealed with effect from 25 October 2023, so notices sent to TED since that date use the structured eForms format.
- The thresholds. Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2152 sets the amounts from 1 January 2026: EUR 140,000 for supplies and services bought by central government authorities and EUR 216,000 for other contracting authorities. Article 51(6) lets buyers send smaller notices to TED voluntarily.
TED publishes Monday to Friday; the Publications Office says more than 3,000 notices appear each publication day. For reuse it offers a Search API that, in its own words, "does not require a key", and bulk XML packages: "a single archive (XML package) contains all the notices for the chosen day or for the chosen month" (URL patterns ted.europa.eu/packages/daily/{yyyynnnnn} and ted.europa.eu/packages/monthly/{yyyy-n}, limited to three concurrent downloads under the fair-usage policy).
Why it matters for a manufacturer
- It names the companies that already sell your category. An award notice gives the winner of each lot, the buyer, the CPV code and usually the value. Read across a year, that is a list of the distributors and competitors active in a country.
- It is comparable across countries. The same eForms fields and the same CPV codes are used in every member state, so the question "who won supply contracts for these codes" works in Romania and in Finland alike.
- It shows how local the market is. In the Cresques base, built from the TED packages, there are 1,604,107 supply awards dated since November 2023, drawn from more than 330,000 award notices, across 30 countries (the 27 EU members plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein). How we count is on /methodology.
- It has a blind spot. Purchases below the thresholds are published, if at all, on national portals, so TED shows the larger contracts only.
Example
A regional hospital group tenders surgical gloves in three lots. In March it publishes a contract notice on TED with CPV 33141420 and a deadline for tenders. In June, after signing, it sends a contract award notice: lot 1 went to a national medical distributor, lot 2 to the local subsidiary of a glove manufacturer, lot 3 had no valid tender. The award notice appears on TED a few days later in the original language with summaries in the other EU languages, and the same day it is included in that issue's daily XML package. A manufacturer looking for a partner now knows one distributor that sells gloves to hospitals in that country, and the date its contract ends. Our guide on how to read a TED contract award notice walks through each field.
Related terms
Questions
- What does TED stand for?
- TED stands for Tenders Electronic Daily. It is the online version of the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union, run by the Publications Office of the EU, and it is where public buyers publish notices for contracts above the EU thresholds.
- Is TED free to use?
- Yes. Searching and reading notices on ted.europa.eu is free. The TED Search API does not require a key, and every notice can be downloaded in bulk as XML in daily or monthly packages, subject to the Publications Office's fair-usage limits.
- Which contracts are not on TED?
- Contracts below the EU thresholds. For supplies and services in 2026 and 2027 the thresholds are EUR 140,000 for central government and EUR 216,000 for other contracting authorities. Smaller purchases are published, if at all, on national portals, although buyers may also send them to TED voluntarily.
- How often is TED published?
- TED publishes on working days, Monday to Friday. The Publications Office says more than 3,000 procurement notices appear on an average publication day, and each daily issue of the Supplement has its own OJ S number.
- What is the difference between a contract notice and a contract award notice?
- A contract notice opens a competition and invites tenders. A contract award notice reports the result: the winner of each lot, usually the value and the number of tenders. Buyers must send the award notice within 30 days of concluding the contract.
