How to bid abroad · Europe
Bidding in the United Kingdom as a foreign company
Yes, for what the United Kingdom listed in its WTO annexes.
Whether a company established in the EU may bid in the United Kingdom is decided by one instrument, and this page names it rather than describing it.
Yes, for the procurement the United Kingdom listed. As a party to the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement, the United Kingdom committed to treat suppliers from the other parties, the EU among them, no less favourably than its own. What that covers is not the whole state: each party files annexes naming the buyers, the goods and services, and the value thresholds it opens, and anything outside those annexes is not covered by the agreement at all.
Instrument: WTO Agreement on Government Procurement, party in its own right since 2021.
Where you would register
The national channels in the United Kingdom. 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 register as a supplier in the United Kingdom
Any supplier that wants to bid for a procurement run under the Procurement Act 2023. The Cabinet Office says you can register now but only need to at the point you want to bid for a contract, and that Find a Tender is free to use for everyone. Source: gov.uk
Create a GOV.UK One Login with your individual work email address and agree to its terms of use and privacy policy. If you already have one, sign in and go straight to the next step.
Source: gov.ukAgree to the Central Digital Platform service privacy policy and enter your first and last name.
Source: gov.ukFrom My account, select Register an organisation, then choose Supplier rather than Buyer.
Source: gov.ukGive the organisation's Companies House number or an equivalent, such as a Charity Commission number. If it has no such number, the platform assigns it a unique identifier, and a non-UK address can be entered.
Source: gov.ukSelect the SME status if it applies, check the registered name, give a shared organisation email address your team can access and the registered address, check your answers and save.
Source: gov.ukOpen the organisation with View to find its unique identifier, and share that identifier with the contracting authority before being awarded a contract.
Source: gov.uk
Worth knowing
- Find a Tender is free to use for everyone: the Cabinet Office says there are no charges and you should not pay to view opportunities in the public sector. Source: gov.uk
- An account on the old Find a Tender does not carry over: you re-register, and with the same email address your saved searches are pulled through. Source: gov.uk
- The supplier information it asks for includes the Companies House number if you have one, the most recent two years of accounts if you have them, people or businesses connected to the organisation or with significant control over it, and any convictions or offences. Source: gov.uk
- To keep tendering on Sell2Wales, upload the unique supplier ID to your Sell2Wales profile. Source: sell2wales.gov.wales
Checked on against the official sources linked above. Procedures change, and each tender's own documents decide.
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. 17 sources publish public procurement in the United Kingdom, and 12 of them are read here every day, which leaves 5 mapped and not yet read. A company that registers on the national portal and stops there is watching one address out of 17.
Where the competition is thinnest in the United Kingdom
Across the competed lots awarded through Find a Tender from January to September 2026, 10.7% of 16,033 drew exactly one bid. 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. Every code and buyer is on the UK single-bid page, and where and how to bid, step by step, on the UK country page.
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 the United Kingdom?
Yes, for the procurement the United Kingdom listed. As a party to the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement, the United Kingdom committed to treat suppliers from the other parties, the EU among them, no less favourably than its own. What that covers is not the whole state: each party files annexes naming the buyers, the goods and services, and the value thresholds it opens, and anything outside those annexes is not covered by the agreement at all.
02Where would a company register to bid in the United Kingdom?
Find a Tender (https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/), the UK's national service for above-threshold procurement notices; Contracts Finder (https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/), the service for lower-value contracts across England; Public Contracts Scotland (https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/), Scotland's national procurement portal. Those are the national channels. Beyond them, 17 sources in total publish public tenders in the United Kingdom, of which 12 are read by a dedicated connector on this site, so registering on the national portal alone leaves 5 publishing places unwatched.
03How do I register as a supplier in the United Kingdom?
Any supplier that wants to bid for a procurement run under the Procurement Act 2023. The Cabinet Office says you can register now but only need to at the point you want to bid for a contract, and that Find a Tender is free to use for everyone. 1. Create a GOV.UK One Login with your individual work email address and agree to its terms of use and privacy policy. If you already have one, sign in and go straight to the next step. 2. Agree to the Central Digital Platform service privacy policy and enter your first and last name. 3. From My account, select Register an organisation, then choose Supplier rather than Buyer. 4. Give the organisation's Companies House number or an equivalent, such as a Charity Commission number. If it has no such number, the platform assigns it a unique identifier, and a non-UK address can be entered. 5. Select the SME status if it applies, check the registered name, give a shared organisation email address your team can access and the registered address, check your answers and save. 6. Open the organisation with View to find its unique identifier, and share that identifier with the contracting authority before being awarded a contract. Checked on 12 Oct 2026 against the official sources linked above. Procedures change, and each tender's own documents decide.
04Does being a WTO member let an EU company bid in the United Kingdom?
Not by itself. WTO membership carries no procurement rights: the Agreement on Government Procurement is a separate, opt-in agreement, and the United Kingdom has opted in, which is why the answer here is yes. What it covers is still only what the United Kingdom listed in its own annexes.
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.