Selling into Slovenia through distributors

How the market buys

Slovenia is a small market with a single national publication point. Ministries and state bodies, municipalities, public hospitals and health centres, schools and universities buy under the Public Procurement Act (ZJN-3), and they publish in the same place.

That place is the Portal javnih naročil, the Public Procurement Portal. The act defines it as the web portal of the ministry responsible for public procurement, to which contracting authorities send notices and procurement documents for publication. When a buyer marks a notice for the Official Journal of the EU, the portal also takes care of sending it there electronically. Alongside it, e-JN (Elektronsko javno naročanje) is the electronic public procurement system that buyers and bidders register to use; anyone can browse current public procurements on it without registering or logging in.

Slovenian buyers usually award to companies that can bid in Slovenian, invoice locally and provide service within the country. In our analysis of TED award notices for supplies (September 2026), 98% of the winners in the 1,748 notices from buyers in Slovenia 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. A foreign manufacturer enters by being listed with them.

Lawful first contact

Slovenia is one of the countries where a first e-mail to a company is lawful, as long as the sender plays fair. Article 226(1) of the Electronic Communications Act (ZEKom-2) permits e-mail for direct marketing only with the subscriber's or user's prior consent. Article 226(4) then limits that rule: paragraphs 1 and 3 apply to subscribers who are natural persons. A direct-marketing e-mail to a Slovenian distribution company therefore does not need prior consent. Paragraph 6 goes a step further for business contacts: a natural or legal person may use the e-mail address of a natural person if a legal person has published that address as its own contact address.

Paragraph 5 applies to every message. It prohibits marketing e-mail that hides or disguises the identity of the sender, that gives no valid address to which the recipient can send a request to stop, or that invites the recipient to visit websites in breach of e-commerce law. Under article 229, AKOS, the Agency for Communication Networks and Services, supervises compliance with these provisions. The provisions read the same in the consolidated text that includes the 2023 and 2025 amendments.

In practice: use the contact address the distributor publishes on its website or in its company details; a sole proprietor (s.p.) is a natural person and needs consent unless the address was published as the contact of a legal person. Identify your company fully, keep the message about what the distributor sells, include a working way to opt out, and honour any refusal at once. If you write to a named employee, data protection law also applies to that personal data. Writing in Slovenian, or opening in Slovenian with an English version below, helps the message get read.

What local distributors expect

Slovenian distributors expect a supplier who makes their bids easier, not harder:

• Slovenian-language documentation: technical sheets, instructions, declarations and price lists ready to attach to a bid in e-JN.
• Conformity evidence for the category — CE marking, declarations of conformity, test reports — and any national registrations the product needs.
• A margin that holds after a competitive tender and a clear position on price changes over a framework agreement.
• Lead times you can keep, and service and spare parts available locally for the life of the contract.
• A defined territory — some distributors also serve Croatia or the wider region — and an honest conversation about exclusivity.
• Samples and references, ideally from public buyers in neighbouring markets.

How to enter, step by step

1. Read the record for your categories. Choose the CPV codes that describe your range and look at Slovenian contract award notices on TED for the larger contracts, and at the Portal javnih naročil for national notices; current procurements can also be browsed on e-JN without registering. Note which distributors and dealers win repeatedly.
2. Check whether your category is bought jointly. The Ministry of the Interior and Public Administration is the central purchasing body for joint public procurement and runs 24 subjects for state bodies, among them computer hardware, office and consumable supplies, motor vehicles, medicines, medical devices and medical equipment. It publishes a list of completed joint procurements with the framework agreements, the selected bidders and their validity dates; if your category is on it, those bidders are the companies to approach.
3. Prepare Slovenian-language documentation. Technical sheets, instructions, declarations and price lists, ready to attach to a bid in e-JN.
4. Assemble conformity evidence. CE marking, declarations of conformity and test reports, plus any national registrations the product needs.
5. Make the first contact by e-mail to the published address. Use the contact address the distributor publishes on its website or in its company details, identify your company fully, keep to what the distributor sells, include a working way to opt out and honour any refusal at once. Treat a sole proprietor (s.p.) as a natural person, and open in Slovenian with an English version below.
6. Prepare the first meeting. Bring a margin that holds after a competitive tender, a position on price changes over a framework agreement, lead times you can keep, local service and spare parts for the life of the contract, and a defined territory — some distributors also serve Croatia or the wider region — with an honest view on exclusivity.
7. Follow the results. Provide samples and references, ideally from public buyers in neighbouring markets, and use later award notices to see where your range wins.

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 — Slovenian buyers must publish contract award notices, and those notices appear 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, laboratory equipment or office furniture contracts in Slovenia can be identified from the public record. National notices are published on the Portal javnih naročil.

Cresques reads the award notices for the CPV categories you choose and shows who already sells that category in Slovenia. 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.