TED (Tenders Electronic Daily)
The EU public procurement journal; above-threshold notices from EU member states are published here.
Definition
TED (Tenders Electronic Daily) is the EU public procurement journal operated by the European Commission Publications Office. Above-threshold public procurement notices from EU member states are published on TED in standardised OCDS-compatible format. Pre-Brexit, UK public sector notices above threshold were published on TED via the OJEU regime; post-Brexit UK uses Find a Tender instead, and UK notices are no longer on TED. For UK suppliers selling cross-border into EU member states, TED remains the primary opportunity source.
How it works in practice
TED publishes notices in all official EU languages with structured data following the OCDS-aligned EU eForms specification. The portal supports keyword and structured search across multiple notice types: prior information notices, contract notices, award notices, and others. Cross-border procurement under EU rules requires suppliers to comply with the member state's domestic implementation of EU procurement directives; the actual procurement process happens through the member state's own portal infrastructure with TED serving as the central aggregated publication. For UK suppliers active in EU public sector procurement, TED monitoring is essential; KimonBids does not currently aggregate TED but specialist EU-focused procurement intelligence platforms (Tenders Direct, Tenders Info, others) cover this market. The Brexit transition reduced UK supplier cross-border activity substantially but specific markets (UK suppliers selling into Ireland, multilateral defence procurement, sector specialists in EU procurement-intensive categories) maintain meaningful cross-border activity. UK and EU procurement regimes have continued to evolve in parallel post-Brexit: PA 2023 in the UK and EU eForms / OCDS data model evolution in the EU side.
Common questions
Are UK contracts still on TED?
No, since 1 January 2021. UK contracts above threshold are now published on Find a Tender (FTS) rather than TED. Some historical UK contracts published pre-Brexit remain on TED archives.
Do I need to register on TED to bid for EU contracts?
TED is the publication portal only; the actual procurement process happens through the member state's own portal infrastructure. EU public procurement bidding requires registration and engagement with the member state portals (the EU equivalents of Contracts Finder / FTS in each country).
Are TED notices in English?
Notices are published in the original language of the issuing member state, with summaries available in other EU official languages. For UK suppliers monitoring TED most member state procurement is in the local language; English-language summaries help with initial screening but full bid preparation requires local language capability or translation.