Can Foreign Companies Bid on Norwegian Public Tenders?

The short answer

Norwegian public buyers (municipalities, counties, hospitals, state agencies and publicly owned companies) buy goods and services worth large sums every year, and they must follow the Public Procurement Act (anskaffelsesloven). A company does not need to be Norwegian to submit a tender. The question that matters is which rights you have if something goes wrong, and whether the contract is realistic to deliver from where you are.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. The Act was amended with effect from 1 July 2026, so always read the current text on Lovdata and the tender documents themselves.

Who has rights under the Public Procurement Act

Section 3 of the Act names the groups that hold rights under it. In practice, according to the official guidance from the Norwegian Agency for Public and Financial Management (DFØ) on anskaffelser.no:

• Companies established in Norway.
• Companies established in another EEA state (the EU countries, Iceland and Liechtenstein). Through the EEA Agreement, Norway follows the EU procurement directives, and EEA suppliers have rights on the same footing as Norwegian suppliers.
• Companies from countries that are party to the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), to the extent the GPA gives them rights. The GPA covers only listed buyers, contract types and values, and some commitments are reciprocal, so the coverage has to be checked per contract.

Companies outside these groups may still take part in competitions. They simply cannot rely on the Act's rights, for example to complain about unequal treatment.

What this means for companies from Pakistan, Türkiye and China

According to the WTO's list of parties and observers, Pakistan (since 2015), Türkiye (since 1996) and China (since 2002, with accession negotiations pending) are observers to the GPA, not parties. Companies registered there therefore do not get GPA rights in Norwegian procurement. A company from these countries can still bid where the buyer allows it, but should expect less legal protection. Many choose to work through a Norwegian or EEA-established company instead, see below.

What this means for companies from Germany and France

German and French companies are EEA suppliers. They have the same rights as Norwegian bidders, can use the European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) where the buyer asks for it, and will often find that the tender procedure looks familiar from home.

Where Norwegian tenders are published

• Doffin (doffin.no) is Norway's national database for public procurement notices, run by DFØ. Contracts above the national thresholds must be advertised there, and buyers may also publish smaller ones. You can search by keyword, contract type, place of performance and notice type, including planning notices that announce future purchases and result notices that show who won.
• TED (Tenders Electronic Daily) is the EU's publication for procurements above the EEA thresholds. Norwegian buyers publish those notices on TED as well. From 2026 the EEA thresholds for goods and services are NOK 1.63 million for central government and NOK 2.5 million for other public buyers, according to the Norwegian government.
• Central purchasing bodies run large framework agreements for many buyers at once. Public hospitals, for example, buy through Sykehusinnkjøp HF, which is owned by the four regional health authorities.

On a Norwegian company's page in Propler you can see tenders that company has announced as a buyer, read from TED (our Doffin connection is built but not yet switched on). In the free company search you can tick "open tenders" to list buyers with an open competition right now.

Is bidding from abroad realistic?

Before you spend weeks on a tender, answer four questions honestly:

1. Can you deliver where the work is done? Remote services such as software development, design or analysis can be delivered from abroad. Construction, cleaning, maintenance and on-site services require people in Norway, with Norwegian rules on pay, working hours, HMS cards and reporting to the tax authorities. See our guide to selling to Norwegian businesses from abroad.
2. Can you meet the qualification requirements? Buyers often ask for turnover, references, certifications, insurance and tax and VAT compliance. Foreign companies normally document this with equivalent evidence from their home country. Read exactly what the tender asks for.
3. Can you work in the tender's language? Many Norwegian tender documents are written in Norwegian, and some buyers require the tender in Norwegian. Larger, international competitions are more often in English. Check before you start.
4. Are you competing on what you are best at? Price alone rarely wins: many Norwegian buyers weigh quality, environmental and social requirements, and some require suppliers to follow Norwegian pay and working conditions.

Three routes in, from easiest to hardest

1. Subcontractor or partner to a Norwegian bidder

The most common entry for foreign companies is to deliver part of a contract for a Norwegian company that bids. You get Norwegian references and learn the procedures without carrying the whole risk. Use Doffin's result notices to see which Norwegian companies win the kind of contracts you can contribute to, then look those companies up in the register and approach them. Our guide to finding business partners in Norway from abroad explains how.

2. Joint bid or consortium

Several companies can bid together, often with a Norwegian or EEA company in the lead. This needs a clear agreement on roles, liability and who signs.

3. Bid directly

Realistic for EEA companies with remote deliverables or a delivery organisation in Norway, and for contracts where the buyer accepts English. Start with one well-chosen competition rather than many.

A practical workflow

1. Define what you can deliver in the terms buyers use: the CPV codes (the EU's common procurement vocabulary) used in notices for your type of goods or services.
2. Watch Doffin and TED for planning and competition notices with those codes. Planning notices give you time to prepare and to find a Norwegian partner.
3. Study past results: who won, at what kind of buyer, and whether the contract is a framework agreement that will not be tendered again for years.
4. Check the buyer and the winners in the Norwegian register: size, accounts, and other tenders they have announced. Our checklist on how to verify a Norwegian company takes about fifteen minutes per company.
5. Ask questions within the deadline. Norwegian buyers answer clarification questions through the tender system, and the answers are shared with all bidders.
6. Decide go or no-go based on fit, not on the size of the contract.

Where Propler fits

Propler covers Norwegian companies only. It helps with the company side of this work: finding public and private buyers that have announced tenders, reading the register facts and accounts of potential Norwegian partners, and, in the AI search (free account), describing what you deliver in plain language to find Norwegian companies that may need it or could subcontract it. It does not replace reading the tender documents, and an AI assessment is decision support, not proof that a buyer will choose you. Read more about Propler.