How to find EU cybersecurity tenders and grants

A short guide for security consultancies, testers, managed security providers and resellers that want public-sector work in Europe.

1. Where EU tenders are published

Public buyers in the EU and the EEA must publish contracts above the EU value thresholds on TED (Tenders Electronic Daily), the online supplement to the Official Journal of the EU. Search is free at ted.europa.eu. Smaller contracts usually appear only on national or regional portals.

2. Search by procurement code

Every notice carries CPV codes that describe what is being bought. These five cover most security software and security development work:

Codes alone are not enough. Many buyers file security work under general IT codes, so a penetration test can sit under IT consulting and a firewall under network equipment.

3. Search by keyword, in more than one language

Notices are written in the buyer's language. Search the full text for the terms a buyer would use, for example cybersecurity, information security, penetration test, SIEM, incident response, NIS2 and ISO 27001, and for local terms such as cyberbezpieczeństwo (Polish), Cybersicherheit (German), cybersécurité (French), ciberseguridad (Spanish) and sicurezza informatica (Italian).

4. Check that the tender is still open

TED also publishes the results of finished tenders. Those notices have no submission deadline. Before you spend time on a notice, check the notice type and the deadline for receipt of tenders. A notice split into lots can have a deadline for each lot.

5. Read the official notice

The notice tells you the estimated value, the language a bid must be written in, the selection criteria and where the tender documents are. The documents themselves are usually on the buyer's own procurement portal, and you may need to register there.

6. Grants are published somewhere else

EU grant calls are on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal, not on TED. For cybersecurity the main programmes are Digital Europe, Horizon Europe and the Internal Security Fund. A grant funds a project you propose, often with partners from several countries, so it works differently from a tender, where a buyer pays for a defined service.