Selling into Portugal through distributors

How the market buys

Portugal is a compact public market with one place to look. The Portal BASE, run by IMPIC (Instituto dos Mercados Públicos, do Imobiliário e da Construção), centralises information on the public contracts concluded in mainland Portugal and the autonomous regions of the Azores and Madeira. It lists the contracts themselves, the notices published in the Diário da República, contract modifications and the contracting entities, and it can be searched by buyer, by winning company and by procedure type — direct award (ajuste direto), prior consultation (consulta prévia), public tender (concurso público) and call-offs under framework agreements among them.

That breadth matters. BASE shows not only the large tenders but the smaller, repeated purchases where a distributor builds its position with a hospital, a municipality or a school group. Buyers deal with suppliers who can invoice in Portugal, deliver nationally and work in Portuguese. In our analysis of TED award notices for supplies (September 2026), 96% of the winners in the 2,667 notices from buyers in Portugal were companies registered in the country (96% across the 30 EU and EEA countries); those local winners include distributors and dealers as well as manufacturers' own local subsidiaries — see our methodology.

Lawful first contact

Portugal treats companies differently from individuals. Article 13.º-A(1) of Lei 41/2004, the national transposition of the ePrivacy Directive, makes marketing by e-mail subject to the prior, express consent of a subscriber who is a natural person, or of a user. Article 13.º-A(2), added by Lei 46/2012, then states that this does not apply to subscribers who are legal persons: unsolicited communications for direct marketing are permitted until the company refuses further communications and registers on the national list in article 13.º-B.

That list is kept by the Direção-Geral do Consumidor (DGC). Registration is free and made through an electronic form on the DGC website, the list is updated monthly, and anyone sending direct marketing is obliged to consult it. Article 13.º-A(4) adds that the message must not hide the sender's identity and must give a valid contact address for opting out. The CNPD, the data protection authority, receives complaints about unsolicited marketing. Because every sender must check that list before writing, we describe Portugal as conditional rather than open.

In practice: write to the company's general or commercial address, check the DGC list before you send, identify yourself fully, include a simple way to stop further messages, and act on any refusal at once. Treat a named employee's address with care. The consent rule in article 13.º-A(1) covers users — natural persons using the service — as well as individual subscribers, and a named address is personal data in any case. Write in Portuguese, or at least open in Portuguese.

What local distributors expect

• Portuguese-language documentation: technical sheets, instructions, safety information and price lists. Tender documents are in Portuguese.
• Conformity evidence for the category — CE marking and declarations where the product is regulated, and test reports against the standards buyers specify.
• A clear commercial structure: margin, exclusivity, and whether the distributor also covers the Azores and Madeira.
• Prices that work for both large framework call-offs and small direct awards, and the patience to start with the second.
• Reliable lead times, a stock arrangement that keeps deliveries within what buyers expect, and spare parts afterwards.
• References and samples.

How to enter, step by step

1. Read the record for your categories. Choose the CPV codes that describe your range and look at Portuguese contract award notices on TED for the larger contracts. Then search Portal BASE by buyer, by winning company and by procedure type — direct awards, prior consultations, public tenders and framework call-offs — to see which distributors serve which hospitals, municipalities and school groups.
2. Check eSPap's framework agreements. eSPap makes framework agreements available to the National Public Procurement System (SNCP): direct state administration services and public institutes are bound to it, while autonomous administration bodies and public enterprises can join voluntarily. Its list of agreements in force shows each agreement's notices in the Diário da República and the Official Journal of the EU, its tender documents and the suppliers holding contracts; if your category is there, those suppliers are the first companies to look at.
3. Prepare Portuguese documentation. Article 58.º of the Public Contracts Code requires the documents that make up a bid to be in Portuguese; the procedure rules may admit some technical documents in other languages, and since Decree-Law No. 177/2026 of 4 September 2026 other supporting documents may be in a foreign language unless the procedure rules say otherwise. Translate technical sheets, instructions, safety information and price lists.
4. Assemble conformity evidence in electronic form. Bids are submitted on the electronic platform the buyer uses (article 62.º), so have CE marking, declarations of conformity and test reports ready as files the distributor can upload.
5. Make the first contact lawfully. Check the DGC opt-out list, write to the company's general or commercial address, identify yourself fully, include a simple way to stop further messages and act on any refusal at once. Write in Portuguese, or at least open in Portuguese.
6. Prepare the first meeting. Agree margin, exclusivity and whether the distributor also covers the Azores and Madeira, with prices that work for both large framework call-offs and small direct awards, reliable lead times, a stock arrangement, spare parts, references and samples.
7. Start small and follow up. Be ready to begin with small direct awards, then use BASE to follow the contracts the distributor wins with your range and plan the next step together.

Where the evidence comes from

Above the EU thresholds — EUR 140,000 for supplies and services bought by central government bodies and EUR 216,000 for other public authorities from 1 January 2026 — Portuguese buyers must publish contract award notices on TED, the online supplement to the Official Journal of the EU. Each notice names the winning company and carries CPV codes, so the distributors that repeatedly win, for example, medical consumables or laboratory equipment contracts can be identified from the public record. Below the thresholds, BASE records the contracts themselves.

Cresques reads the award notices for the CPV categories you choose and shows who already sells that category in Portugal. It does not help you bid for the contracts; the notices are evidence of who the buyers already trust, and the lawful first contact above is how you reach them.