EU public tenders for companies from outside the EU: after the Kolin ruling
In October 2024 the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on bidders from countries outside the EU. Each contracting authority, the public body that organises a tender, decides for itself whether to admit them. Bidders from countries that have a procurement agreement with the EU keep guaranteed access to the contracts that agreement covers. A Dutch company with its own staff and operations in the Netherlands has good grounds to bid as a Dutch company. We set up and manage that company for groups from abroad.
Ask about your situationBidders from countries that have a procurement agreement with the EU have guaranteed access to the contracts in that agreement. Such an agreement is either the Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) of the World Trade Organization or an EU trade agreement with a chapter on public purchasing. Bidders from other countries can be admitted, but the contracting authority decides and may treat them differently (Kolin, case C-652/22, 22 October 2024).
A company established in the EU counts as an EU economic operator, a supplier entitled to bid under the EU rules. For the EU rules of origin in public purchasing, what matters is whether a company has substantive business operations. That means real activity in the country where it is registered. A Dutch company with its own staff and operations in the Netherlands therefore counts as Dutch. A company that exists only on the register can be judged by the country of its owners.
India and Türkiye remain outside the GPA and the EU procurement agreements. An IT company from either country can therefore bid as an EU operator through a Dutch company with real operations. Since 1 May 2026, bidders from Brazil and the other Mercosur countries have had access to the contracts in the EU-Mercosur trade agreement. Special measures apply to tenders covered by the International Procurement Instrument, the EU tool that limits access for countries that restrict EU bidders. An example is the current measure on medical devices from China.
Tell us what you make or sell, where your company is and what you plan in Europe. Our team looks at it and replies with the steps and the dates that apply to you.
Who does what
We set up and manage the Dutch company that submits the bid, tender advisers and lawyers help with the bid itself, and you deal with one contact for the company.
Your company
- Your services, your references and your tender team
- The decision to place people and work in the Netherlands
- The bid itself
The Dutch company
- Set up the Dutch BV by power of attorney, with the notary
- Registration with the Chamber of Commerce (KVK), VAT number, bank account and payroll
- Bookkeeping, annual accounts and the tax statements for tenders
- Dutch company documents for the tender file
Tenders, law, people
- Tender adviser for the bid
- Lawyer for the tender terms and complaints
- Recruitment and an office in the Netherlands
Step by step
From a tender you want to win to a Dutch company that can bid.
- The tender. You share the tender or the market, your services and your team, and we tell you which Dutch set-up suits you.
- The company. The notary sets up the Dutch BV under a power of attorney and signs the deed once all documents are complete.
- The operations. You put staff, an office and contracts in place in the Netherlands, and we set up payroll and bookkeeping.
- The documents. We provide the extract from the trade register, the statement on tax payments and, after the first year, the annual accounts.
- The bid. The Dutch company submits the self-declaration for tenders (European Single Procurement Document, ESPD) and the bid, while your group provides references and capacity.
- After the award. The Dutch company signs the contract, sends the invoices and accounts for the VAT in its own name.
What the Kolin ruling decided
The case concerned a Turkish bidder in a Croatian tender. The Court of Justice ruled that the rights in the EU procurement directives belong to bidders from the EU and from countries with a procurement agreement with the EU. Bidders from other third countries can be admitted to a tender, and the contracting authority chooses whether to give them access (paragraphs 45 to 48). The Court confirmed this approach on 13 March 2025 in case C-266/22, brought by the Chinese train maker CRRC Qingdao Sifang.
Only the EU may set general rules on access for bidders from third countries (paragraph 61). The contracting authority assesses whether to admit such bidders and, if it admits them, whether to adjust the result of the evaluation (paragraph 63). It may treat them differently in the tender documents (paragraph 64), and their complaints are judged under national law (paragraph 66).
The Dutch government’s centre of expertise on public purchasing, PIANOo, advises contracting authorities that they may admit such bidders. An authority that wishes to exclude them should say so in the tender documents. According to the European Commission, a contracting authority may decide on their admission at any stage of the procedure.
Who has guaranteed access
The GPA has 22 parties covering 49 members of the World Trade Organization. Among them are the EU, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Korea, Switzerland, Norway, Israel and Singapore, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Hong Kong (China) and Chinese Taipei. China is negotiating to join, India and Türkiye remain outside, and Brazil withdrew its offer in 2023.
Bidders from countries with an EU trade agreement that includes a procurement chapter also have access. These countries include Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Chile, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Ukraine, Vietnam, Georgia, Moldova and Armenia. Central America and the Andean countries Colombia, Ecuador and Peru are covered as well. Since 1 May 2026 the Mercosur countries Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay are covered too, through the provisionally applied EU-Mercosur trade agreement.
In each case, access covers the public bodies, sectors and contract values listed in the agreement.
Tell us what you make or sell, where your company is and what you plan in Europe. Our team looks at it and replies with the steps and the dates that apply to you.
A Dutch company as the bidder
A Dutch private limited company (BV) owned by a parent outside the EU is established in the EU. The Court still has to rule on such subsidiaries. Both the International Procurement Instrument (IPI), for its own measures, and the guidance of PIANOo judge a company that is merely registered in the EU by the country of its owners.
Under the IPI, a company comes from the country under whose law it was set up, provided it has substantive business operations there. A company that is merely registered takes the origin of the owner with dominant influence (Regulation (EU) 2022/1031, Article 3(1)(b)). Dominant influence means a majority of the capital or the votes, or the right to appoint most of the board.
PIANOo applies the test in Annex II of the Anti-Coercion Regulation (EU) 2023/2675. Under that test, a company registered in the EU with a direct and effective link to its member state counts as a company of that member state. For a company that is merely registered, the nationality of its owners is what counts.
In practice, a Dutch company with staff, an office and contracts in the Netherlands has good grounds to bid as a Dutch company. The contracting authority makes the final decision. Put the people and the work in place in the Netherlands before the tender.
The International Procurement Instrument and China
The IPI allows the EU to limit access to large tenders for bidders from countries that restrict EU bidders. It covers contracts worth at least €15 million for works and concessions and €5 million for goods and services, excluding value added tax (VAT). Under an IPI measure contracting authorities can lower the score of bidders from the country concerned by up to 50%, or exclude them.
The first measure, Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1197, applies for five years from 30 June 2025. It excludes economic operators originating in China from tenders for medical devices worth €5 million or more. Devices of Chinese origin may make up at most 50% of the contract value. The European Commission is reviewing the IPI, including its rules of origin, and its public consultation on the Have Your Say portal closes on 1 December 2026.
Thresholds and documents for Dutch tenders
Dutch contracting authorities publish tenders above the European thresholds on the national tender platform, TenderNed. For 2026 and 2027 the thresholds, excluding VAT, range from €140,000 for supplies and services bought by central government to €5,404,000 for works and concessions.
| Contracting authority and contract | Threshold |
|---|---|
| Central government: supplies and services | €140,000 |
| Local and regional authorities: supplies and services | €216,000 |
| Works and concessions | €5,404,000 |
| Utilities and defence: supplies and services | €432,000 |
| Social and other specific services | €750,000 (utilities: €1,000,000) |
Above the thresholds, bidders submit a self-declaration, the European Single Procurement Document (ESPD; in Dutch the Uniform Europees Aanbestedingsdocument, UEA). The winner then backs it up with an extract from the trade register, a statement on tax payments and the Dutch certificate of conduct for tenders (Gedragsverklaring Aanbesteden, GVA). Justis, the screening agency of the Ministry of Justice and Security, issues the GVA to Dutch companies, and it is valid for two years. Foreign companies submit the equivalent document from their home country.
Dutch government contracts, the security requirements and the procurement vision of 16 October 2026
On 16 October 2026 the Dutch cabinet adopted a new vision on central government procurement (Visie op Rijksinkoop) for the next five years. Central government buys for about €20 billion a year and has contracts with 25,000 businesses. Defence falls outside the vision but follows it where possible. The vision is policy, so the procurement rules stay the same. Government buyers give more weight to digital autonomy, continuity of supply, security and sustainability, with less paperwork for themselves and their suppliers. Security and digital autonomy become contract terms, with a risk check before signing and during delivery.
Since 1 January 2026, contracts with risks to national security fall under the general security requirements for central government contracts (Algemene Beveiligingseisen voor Rijksoverheidsopdrachten, ABRO). The police and the ministries of General Affairs, Defence, Finance and the core department of Justice and Security already apply them. Other ministries and their agencies follow in 2026 and 2027. Such contracts include those where the supplier receives classified information, works in a datacenter or a prison, or works on government systems or software.
For such a contract, the National Bureau for Industrial Security (Nationaal Bureau Industrieveiligheid, NBIV), a partnership of the two Dutch intelligence services, investigates the supplier before the award. The ABRO has chapters on governance and organisation, personnel, physical security, cybersecurity and cloud, and the chapters on governance and personnel always apply. Only a supplier with an ABRO declaration can win the contract, and the NBIV continues its checks while the contract lasts.
A bidder from abroad needs a Dutch BV with real operations, a clear board and ownership, reliable staff and documented information security. Before you bid, prepare the ownership chart, the directors and the staff on the contract, your subcontractors and the location of your data and cloud services. Foreign ownership as such is absent from the official pages, and the NBIV judges each company on its own file.
Large contracts and new EU rules
Contracts worth €250 million or more fall under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (EU) 2022/2560 (Articles 28 and 29). A bidder must notify the contracting authority when its group, including its main subcontractors and suppliers, received financial contributions of €4 million or more from one third country in the three years before the notification. The contracting authority passes the notification to the European Commission. In a tender divided into lots, the duty to notify also requires that the lots the bidder applies for add up to at least €125 million.
On 9 September 2026 the European Commission proposed a Public Procurement Act, under its reference COM(2026) 590. It would replace the three procurement directives, add criteria that favour European suppliers and apply two years after it enters into force. Law firms expect adoption in late 2027 at the earliest.
Private buyers that require an EU contracting party
Large EU customers often require a supplier established in the EU. The EU data protection rules, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), apply to processing in the context of an establishment in the EU (Article 3(1)). A company outside the EU that targets people in the EU must appoint a representative in the EU (Article 27). That representative serves as a contact point, and the company abroad remains the contracting party.
The General Court upheld the EU-US Data Privacy Framework on 3 September 2025 (case T-553/23), and an appeal is pending (C-703/25 P). Customers covered by the EU cybersecurity directive (NIS2) check the security of their direct suppliers (Article 21(2)(d)), and the Dutch Cybersecurity Act (Cyberbeveiligingswet) has applied since 15 August 2026.
Our guide to customer contracts that require an EU entity covers these requirements in more detail.
Sources: Court of Justice of the EU, judgment in case C-652/22 (Kolin) and judgment in case C-266/22 (CRRC Qingdao Sifang) of 13 March 2025; European Commission, provisional application of the EU-Mercosur agreement; World Trade Organization, Agreement on Government Procurement; European Commission, public procurement in trade agreements; Regulation (EU) 2022/1031 and Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1197; Foreign Subsidies Regulation (EU) 2022/2560; PIANOo, European thresholds and the guidance on bidders from third countries; TenderNed; COM(2026) 590; GDPR, Articles 3 and 27; General Court, case T-553/23. Checked on 25 September 2026. Government of the Netherlands, new vision on central government procurement, 16 October 2026 and security requirements ABRO; Ondernemersplein, ABRO for government contracts. Checked against the official sources on 21 October 2026.
Common questions
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