Public tenders in Germany

A public tender in Germany is a Vergabeverfahren. A contracting authority invites companies to offer works, supplies, or services, then awards the contract under the rules named in the notice. Above the EU thresholds, Part 4 of the Gesetz gegen Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen (GWB) sets the principles and the review system. The Vergabeverordnung (VgV) sets the procedure for supplies and services. Works use section 2 of VOB/A, the procurement rules for construction.

Below the EU thresholds, supplies and services are commonly awarded under the Unterschwellenvergabeordnung (UVgO), and works under section 1 of VOB/A. The Länder and municipalities add their own administrative rules. A federal supply contract and a municipal works contract are not the same procedure. The notice states which rulebook applies.

Use the notice to find the competition, then the platform named in that notice to collect the Vergabeunterlagen and submit the offer. The federal sites below do not all do the same job.

• e-Vergabe is the federal e-procurement platform of the Beschaffungsamt des BMI. The office says companies can collect the documents and submit an offer there, and that registration is free. Not every German buyer uses this platform. Cities and Länder often use their own Vergabeplattform.
• service.bund.de publishes notices and awarded contracts from federal, Land, and municipal administrations. It is a search window onto notices. It is not the submission system.
• Above the EU thresholds, the VgV requires notices to be sent to TED through the Datenservice Öffentlicher Einkauf. The Bekanntmachungsservice is at oeffentlichevergabe.de. TED then carries the European notice. The documents stay on the platform named in the notice.

The Federal Government publishes the EU thresholds in the Bundesanzeiger. The notice of 9 December 2025, applying from 1 January 2026, sets €140,000 for supply and service contracts awarded by central federal authorities, €216,000 for supply and service contracts awarded by other contracting authorities, and €5,404,000 for works. Social and other special services remain at €750,000. Utilities supplies and services are €432,000, and utilities works and concessions are €5,404,000. Amounts are net of VAT. These are the 2026–2027 figures in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2152 and the companion regulations for utilities and concessions.

Above those thresholds, VgV procedures include the open procedure (offenes Verfahren), the restricted procedure with a call for competition, the negotiated procedure with a call for competition, competitive dialogue, and the innovation partnership. A negotiated procedure without a notice is allowed only in the cases § 14 VgV lists. Below the thresholds, national value limits differ by Land. Do not copy one Land’s limit into a competition run by another.

The Vergabeunterlagen usually include the invitation to tender, the specification (Leistungsbeschreibung), the contract conditions, price forms, and declarations on exclusion grounds. For EU procedures the European Single Procurement Document is the standard self-declaration. Questions have to be asked by the date in the documents. Answers go to all bidders.

§ 15 VgV sets the minimum period for receipt of offers in an open procedure at 35 days, counted from the day after the contract notice was sent. The authority may shorten that period by five days when it accepts electronic offers, and a justified urgency has a floor of 15 days. In a restricted procedure, § 16 VgV sets at least 30 days for requests to participate. The deadline on the platform named in the notice is the one that decides whether the offer is in time. A receipt confirmation on e-Vergabe records arrival on that server. It does not exist for an offer sent to a different platform.

German. The Vergabeunterlagen and the forms are in German. TED can display notice fields in the EU languages. That display is not the specification.

Submit in the language the documents require. Assume German unless the notice expressly accepts another language, and file any required German forms as specified.

EU and EEA companies compete for procedures covered by the directives. Suppliers from GPA parties can compete for covered contracts on the terms of that agreement. You will usually need the identification method the platform states, evidence that exclusion grounds do not apply, and the financial and technical selection evidence the documents request. Some procedures ask for a German translation of a foreign certificate. Obtain it before the deadline.

Register on the platform named in the notice. An account on e-Vergabe does not submit an offer to a municipal platform that uses a different system. Check the lots. A bid for the wrong lot, or a variant the documents do not allow, is a common way to lose a tender the company could have performed. how public tenders work walks through that sequence without the German labels.

A German notice at or above the EU thresholds can appear in TenderFaro’s TED search. TenderFaro does not replace e-Vergabe, service.bund.de, oeffentlichevergabe.de, or the buyer’s own platform, and it does not hold the Vergabeunterlagen.

TenderFaro does not award contracts and does not decide legal eligibility. Discovery searches published notices on TED and UK Find a Tender. SAM.gov search is available when a server credential is configured, and the product says so rather than inventing results. Importing a notice stores it for your organisation and does not start an analysis. With the tender documents in hand, TenderFaro helps a team turn them into structured requirements and compare those requirements with company evidence, with the source wording kept next to the finding. Gaps and potential blockers stay visible for a person to review.

A search result is not a tender pack. A watch match is not a recommendation to bid. An evidence comparison is not a compliance ruling. The company makes the decision. Nothing on this site guarantees an award. The product path is in discover tenders, how TenderFaro works, and a sample analysis.