What the EU procurement scoreboard tells bidders

Insights · Procedures & timing · Published 10 October 2026. This analysis was generated with the help of an AI system. Its legal references were checked against the official EU texts listed under Sources on 10 October 2026. It describes the law as it stood on that date. Not legal advice.

Short answer. The Commission publishes eight procurement indicators per Member State, based on notices in the EU’s Tenders Electronic Daily (TED). For 2024 they show differences that matter when you bid abroad:

• Award on price alone ranged from 0% to 96% of procedures across the 26 countries with a figure. The mid-ranking reference value is 54%.
• The average time from tender deadline to award in open procedures ranged from 40 to 157 days.
• The share of contracts with a single bidder ranged from 4% to 56%.

These figures tell you what is typical in a country. They don’t tell you about your tender, a sector, or why a country scores as it does. The Commission itself says they give “only a partial view”.

Data · What the Commission publishes

Source and period. “All indicators are based on notices published in the Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) database, under four EU Procurement Directives”: general, sectoral, concessions and defence. The reporting period is January to December 2024.

The four indicators most relevant to bidders, with the Commission’s own definitions:

• Single bidder: “the proportion of contracts awarded where there was just a single bidder”. Framework agreements and direct awards are excluded.
• Award criteria based on price alone: “the proportion of procedures awarded solely because the offer was the cheapest one available”.
• Decision speed: “the average decision-making period (i.e. the time between the deadline for receiving offers and the date the contract is awarded)”. Only open procedures without framework agreements are counted.
• Procedures divided into lots: “the proportion of tenders divided into lots”.

The other four indicators are direct awards (procedures negotiated without a call for bids), publication value as a share of GDP, contracts with SME participation, and SME bids.

The reference value. Each country page compares the country with an “EU average”, for which “a typical (mid-ranking) EU country is used”. It isn’t an arithmetic mean.

Colour thresholds. The Commission marks countries green, yellow or red. It bases the thresholds on “qualitative policy judgement on what constitutes good practice” and on recent data. For example:

• single bidder is green at 10% or less and red above 20%;
• price alone is red above 80%;
• decision speed is red above 120 days.

Figures as published on the Scoreboard country pages, read on 10 October 2026. A dash means the country page gives no figure for that indicator. The Luxembourg page shows only the reference values. On three pages the reference value differs from the one shown on all the others:

• Spain, for direct awards;
• the Netherlands, for SME participation;
• Italy, for lots (72% instead of 32%).

The table uses the value shown on the majority of pages.

Our analysis · What a bidder can reasonably conclude

These are descriptive conclusions from the published figures, nothing more.

1. Price-only awards are common, but not everywhere. In 16 of the 26 countries with a figure, more than half of procedures were awarded on price alone. Six were above 80%: Slovakia 96%, Bulgaria 85%, Cyprus 83%, Estonia 83%, Czechia 82% and Romania 82%. Seven were under 30%: Austria, Belgium, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland and Croatia.
   • Where price alone is common, the price formula and the risk of an abnormally low price deserve most of your attention (see how your price becomes points).
   • Where it is rare, expect quality scoring to matter (see how quality is scored).
   • The tender’s own documents always decide.
2. Plan for the wait after the deadline. In open procedures, the published averages run from 40 days (Sweden) to 157 days (Malta). Four countries are above 120 days: Denmark, Greece, Italy and Malta. If your prices, staff or capacity must stay available until the award, compare the tender validity period in the documents with what is typical in that country.
3. Single-bid contracts are frequent in some countries. In 21 of the 25 countries with a figure, more than 20% of contracts had a single bidder. In six it was 40% or more: Poland 56%, Greece 55%, Slovenia 47%, Lithuania 44%, Romania 44% and Czechia 40%. That is a signal that many contracts there attract little competition. It is not a measure of your chances in a particular tender.
4. Lots are used very differently. The share ranges from 11% of procedures (Austria) to 61% (Italy). Where lots are common, smaller firms may find parts of contracts within reach (see lots).

Our analysis · What the figures don’t show

• Causes. The Commission notes that the indicators “are affected by country-specific factors such as what is actually being bought, the structure of the economies concerned, and the relationships between different tendering options, none of which are taken into account”. A high single-bidder share or a high price-only share may reflect what is bought rather than how buyers behave. The figures don’t say which.
• Quality of buyers or markets. The colour codes are the Commission’s policy judgement, and we don’t rank countries. The Commission also says some aspects, such as corruption and administrative burden, are “omitted entirely or covered only indirectly”.
• Contracts outside TED. The data come from TED notices. The Commission notes that in some countries many tenders below the EU thresholds are also published in TED, voluntarily. Contracts that aren’t published there are outside the picture.
• Sectors and single tenders. The figures are country averages for all procurement in a year.
• Trends. The Commission notes that the switch to new TED notices around the end of 2023 “introduced some data-quality issues, incomplete data” and some methodological changes, which “generally have limited impact but may affect comparability across countries and years from 2023 to 2024”. We only use 2024.
• Outliers. Some published values are extreme, such as Croatia’s 0% for price alone. We report them as published and don’t explain them.

Practice · Using the scoreboard

1. Treat it as background when you enter a new country, not as a forecast for a tender.
2. Read the tender documents first. The award criteria, validity period and lots in the documents decide.
3. Check the date of the data before relying on it. These figures are for 2024.
4. Combine it with the procedure. The decision-speed figure covers open procedures only (see procedures for bidders).

What this analysis doesn’t cover

• The four indicators not tabulated here: direct awards, publication value by GDP, SME participation and SME bids.
• Data for Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
• Earlier years.
• The opentender.eu project data that the Commission links to.