How to bid abroad · Europe
Bidding in Germany as a foreign company
Yes, on the same terms as a local firm.
Whether a company established in the EU may bid in Germany is decided by one instrument, and this page names it rather than describing it.
Yes. A company established anywhere in the EU bids in Germany on the same terms as a company established there, and a buyer that treats it differently is breaking the rule it is bound by. Above the EU thresholds the procurement directives apply directly. Below them the Treaty principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination still bind the buyer for any contract a firm in another member state would plausibly want.
Instrument: EU membership, procurement directives 2014/24 and 2014/25.
Where you would register
The national channels in Germany. Registration rules are set by each one and change without notice, so treat these as the addresses to check, not as a list of what they will ask you for.
How to bid in Germany, step by step from the official texts
What the Public Procurement Regulation (VgV), the GWB and the federal e-procurement platform ask of a bidder, a foreign one included, each step tied to the provision or the official page it was read on. The same steps in German.
Register the company on the procurement platform the notice names. On the federal e-Vergabe, registration is free and required to take part, and the e-VergabeApp must be installed before a tender is submitted.
Source: evergabe-online.info, evergabe-online.info
The language the tender must be written in is stated in the notice (BT-97) and, in two-stage procedures, in the invitation to tender.
section 52(2) no. 2 VgV. Source: docs.ted.europa.eu, gesetze-im-internet.de
In an open EU-wide procedure the deadline for tenders is at least 35 days from the day after the notice was sent; the contracting authority may shorten it by five days if it accepts electronic tenders.
section 15(2) and (4) VgV. Source: gesetze-im-internet.de
Suitability is shown first by self-declarations (Eigenerklärungen); further documents should be requested only from candidates or bidders with a realistic chance.
section 122(3) GWB. Source: gesetze-im-internet.de
In an EU-wide procedure the contracting authority accepts the European Single Procurement Document (ESPD, in German EEE) as preliminary evidence. An ESPD used before may be reused if you confirm that its information is still correct.
sections 48(3) and 50(1) VgV. Source: gesetze-im-internet.de, gesetze-im-internet.de
Evidence from the home country counts: the contracting authority accepts a register extract or an equivalent certificate from an authority of the country of origin or establishment. Where that country issues no such certificate, a sworn statement or a formal declaration before an authority or a notary suffices. When certificates are requested, they are as a rule ones covered by the e-Certis online repository.
section 48(2), (4) and (6) VgV. Source: gesetze-im-internet.de
Tenders are submitted in text form by electronic means; the contracting authority may require an advanced or qualified electronic signature or an electronic seal where the data call for it, and the notice says whether a certificate is needed. For bidders established in third countries, the federal e-Vergabe recommends a signature application from a qualified trust service provider established in the Union or a recognised trust service provider in the third country; any other signature application must meet Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 or the Swiss ZertES.
section 53(1) and (3) VgV. Source: gesetze-im-internet.de, evergabe-online.info, evergabe-online.info
Prequalification proves suitability in advance. A company entered in an official list, of the kind the chambers of industry and commerce may also set up, enjoys a presumption of suitability; in construction, German and foreign companies can register in the PQ-VOB database.
section 122(3) GWB, section 48(8) VgV. Source: gesetze-im-internet.de, gesetze-im-internet.de, evergabe-online.info
Each fact read in its official source on .
EU thresholds for 2026 and 2027
From these values, excluding VAT, a contract is advertised EU-wide and Part 4 of the GWB applies; they apply from 1 January 2026 for 2026 and 2027. The lower supplies and services value applies, under section 106 GWB, to the Federal Chancellery and the federal ministries, the higher one to every other contracting authority, the Länder and municipalities included.
| Contract | Threshold | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Works contracts | EUR 5,404,000 | Article 4(a) Directive 2014/24/EU, gesetze-im-internet.de |
| Supplies and services, Federal Chancellery and federal ministries | EUR 140,000 | Article 4(b) Directive 2014/24/EU, section 106(2) no. 1 GWB, gesetze-im-internet.de |
| Supplies and services, all other contracting authorities | EUR 216,000 | Article 4(c) Directive 2014/24/EU |
| Social and other specific services | EUR 750,000 | Article 4(d) Directive 2014/24/EU |
| Utilities, supplies and services | EUR 432,000 | Article 15(a) Directive 2014/25/EU, eur-lex.europa.eu |
| Concessions | EUR 5,404,000 | Article 8(1) Directive 2014/23/EU |
Below the thresholds national law applies. For federal contracts, section 55(2) of the Federal Budget Code (BHO) allows a direct award without a procurement procedure up to an estimated value of EUR 50,000 excluding VAT. The Länder regulate their own budget law, under section 1 of the Budgetary Principles Act (HGrG). Source: § 55 BHO, § 1 HGrG.
How often bids come from abroad, and win
Bids from abroad are rare, counted on TED from January to September 2026: 5.8% of lots received at least one tender from another EEA country and 1.6% one from outside the EEA, measured on the 49.0% and 48.1% of lots that carry the field. 1,142 of the 40,792 notices naming a winner (2.7%) went to at least one company established outside Germany, most often in Austria (283), the Netherlands (143), Switzerland (106). The country is the one the notice gives for the winner, so a foreign group's German subsidiary counts as German.
- Bekanntmachungsservice: 9 monthly exports of its OpenData interface (csv.zip, CC0), January 2026 to September 2026, fetched on 12 October 2026. Each notice counts once, in its first version, in the month the service published it; 3,423 notices whose first version appeared before January 2026 are left out. The legal framework is the field the notice itself carries, grouped as the service's own "Vergaberechtsrahmen" filter groups it.
- TED: every award notice (eForms) from January to September 2026 with Germany as the buyer's first country, fetched up to 12 October 2026. The unit of the bid figures is the lot, and only the total count of tenders is read (BT-759 with BT-760 "tenders"); lots declaring zero or more than 500 tenders are dropped. Shares are truncated, never rounded up.
- Every figure was computed by a script in the repository on two independent routes that had to agree: scripts/gen-de-bekanntmachungen.mjs and scripts/gen-ted-markets.mjs.
A right to bid is not a notice
The instrument above settles whether you may bid. It says nothing about whether you will ever see the tender. 30 sources publish public procurement in Germany, and 24 of them are read here every day, which leaves 6 mapped and not yet read. A company that registers on the national portal and stops there is watching one address out of 30.
Where the competition is thinnest in Germany
Across all procurement in Germany above the EU thresholds, 21.2% of 39,847 lots drew exactly one tender, against 35.9% for the EU as a whole. These are the five CPV divisions where that share is highest, which is where an entrant meets the least installed supply. It is not a ranking of how easy they are.
Tell us the markets, we send the map
Name the countries you are weighing up. You get back where public tenders are published in each one, how much of that we read every day, and what an EU company needs before it may bid there. An email, not a call.
Frequently asked questions
01Can a foreign company bid for public contracts in Germany?
Yes. A company established anywhere in the EU bids in Germany on the same terms as a company established there, and a buyer that treats it differently is breaking the rule it is bound by. Above the EU thresholds the procurement directives apply directly. Below them the Treaty principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination still bind the buyer for any contract a firm in another member state would plausibly want.
02Where would a company register to bid in Germany?
oeffentlichevergabe.de (https://oeffentlichevergabe.de/ui/en), the official notice data service where German procurement notices are published; Bund.de (https://www.bund.de/), the federal portal's tender listings. Those are the national channels. Beyond them, 30 sources in total publish public tenders in Germany, of which 24 are read by a dedicated connector on this site, so registering on the national portal alone leaves 6 publishing places unwatched.
03Does being a WTO member let an EU company bid in Germany?
Not needed: Germany applies the EU procurement directives, so an EU company bids on the same terms as a local one. The WTO Agreement on Government Procurement, to which the EU is a party for all its member states, matters for suppliers from outside the EEA, and only for what the annexes list.
04What does a foreign company need to bid in a German public tender?
A registration on the procurement platform the notice names (on the federal e-Vergabe it is free), a tender in the language the notice states, and self-declarations of suitability: in EU-wide procedures the contracting authority accepts the European Single Procurement Document as preliminary evidence, and certificates from the home country are recognised, or where none is issued, a sworn statement or a formal declaration before an authority or a notary.
05How often do foreign companies win public contracts in Germany?
On TED, 2.7% of the award notices German contracting authorities published from January to September 2026 that name a winner went to at least one company established outside Germany (1,142 of 40,792), counted by TRINTA. The country is the one the notice gives for the winner, so a foreign group's German subsidiary counts as German.
What this does and does not say
It names the instrument that governs access and where the notices are published. It is not legal advice and it is not the tender documents, which are the only thing that binds a particular procedure: a buyer can require local registration, a local agent, a share of local content or a certificate no agreement overrides. Trade agreements also work through annexes, so the right they grant reaches the buyers and the thresholds those annexes list and stops there. Where this page says no instrument exists, that is not the same as saying a foreign firm cannot bid; it means nothing obliges the country to let it, and the tender documents decide. The source counts come from this site's platform registry, which maps 1,470 sources across 126 countries.