How to bid on public tenders in the Netherlands

Dutch public tenders are published on TenderNed, the government’s national e-procurement system. Every tender at or above the EU thresholds must be published there, and TenderNed forwards it to TED automatically. Below the thresholds, authorities may also invite companies directly.

Foreign companies register free of charge under the “Buitenlandse ondernemers” (foreign businesses) tab, since they cannot use the Dutch eHerkenning login. If the registration is approved, the activation code is sent within one business day, but the system only works in Dutch. Some authorities run the procedure on a commercial platform, where you must register separately to download documents and submit your bid.

All Dutch public procurement is governed by the Aanbestedingswet 2012 (Public Procurement Act 2012), which covers contracts above and below the EU thresholds, with guidance from PIANOo, the government’s procurement expertise centre. Authorities must also follow the Gids Proportionaliteit (Proportionality Guide) or explain any deviation.

EU thresholds 2026 to 2027	Excl. VAT
Works	EUR 5,404,000
Supplies and services, central government	EUR 140,000
Supplies and services, other authorities	EUR 216,000
Supplies and services, utilities	EUR 432,000
Social and other specific services	EUR 750,000

There are no fixed national thresholds. The Proportionality Guide treats invitation-only procedures as reasonable up to the EU threshold for supplies and services and up to EUR 1,500,000 for works, and the law caps turnover requirements at three times the contract value.

Social return is a contract condition that requires the supplier to invest part of the contract value in jobs or training for people far from the labour market, such as the long-term unemployed. Central government and many municipalities use it, so expect it in many service and works contracts.

The classic central government rule (social return 1.0) is 5% of the contract value on contracts above EUR 250,000 lasting over six months, and some ministries start at lower values, the lowest being EUR 50,000. Municipal policies most often ask for 5% of the contract value, and some use 2% for contracts where wages make up less than 30% of the cost. Central government joint purchasing (Rijksinkoopsamenwerking) uses a flexible version, social return 2.0, as its standard. It has no fixed percentage, and you propose your own plan, for example hiring, internships or working with social enterprises.

Dutch law does not fix a bid language, but in practice most tender documents are written in Dutch and expect a Dutch bid, so check what each tender accepts. When an authority sets exclusion grounds or suitability requirements, you submit the UEA (Uniform Europees Aanbestedingsdocument, the Dutch ESPD), both above and below the EU thresholds, and the version built in TenderNed is Dutch only.

Only the winning bidder normally has to provide evidence, typically a Gedragsverklaring Aanbesteden (GVA, a certificate of conduct for tendering) from the agency Justis, plus a trade register extract and a tax statement. At submission the GVA may be at most two years old and the others six months. Authorities must accept equivalent documents from your home country. This matters because Justis does not screen foreign companies or persons, and its decision on a GVA for a company takes up to eight weeks, or longer if relevant records are found. A GVA costs EUR 75.

If you send your own staff to the Netherlands, you generally must notify them before the work starts through the government’s Posted Workers portal. This duty under the WagwEU (the Dutch posted workers act) covers employees from the EU, EEA and Switzerland, and self-employed people in certain sectors, and the Dutch client must check your notification within five working days of the start.

The notification exists so that Dutch terms of employment are applied, so price your bid on Dutch pay and conditions. Have your TenderNed account active and your home-country evidence ready well before the deadline.

After the award decision, the authority must wait at least 20 calendar days (the Alcatel or standstill period) before signing. Tender documents and award letters often also set a forfeiture deadline (vervaltermijn), commonly linked to the same 20 days, for starting summary proceedings (kort geding). This deadline only applies if the documents state it, but a claim filed after it can be declared inadmissible.

Objections to the tender documents should be raised during the procedure, normally in the question rounds, and some tender documents also set a deadline for taking them to court. Under the Grossmann doctrine, a bidder who stayed silent generally cannot raise them after losing.

The Commissie van Aanbestedingsexperts (Committee of Procurement Experts) gives non-binding advice once you have complained to the authority first, but since 20 November 2025 only on complaints about how a tender is designed, not about selection or award decisions. A bill sent to Parliament in December 2025 (bill 36874) would make complaint desks mandatory, but it had not been adopted by October 2026.