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Full text (FT)

Quick search allows you to make a full text (FT) search by specifying the keyword you want to search for.

The search is performed in:

• all the text fields in each notice,
• all labels for code values, as they are displayed in notices,
• all languages.

Exact phrase

You can use double quotes: (" ") to search for an exact phrase.

• Example: "Agriculture and Food" finds only the phrase Agriculture and Food

Wildcards

You can use the following wildcards in your search:

• an asterisk (*) to replace any number of characters
  • Example: "transport*" will find transportation, transporting, etc.
• a question mark (?) instead of a single character to find variations of the word with a different character
  • Example: "ca?e" will find case, cane, care etc.

     Note that:

• You cannot use a leading wildcard (e. g. *ansport) when your search scope is “All notices”.
• You cannot use wildcards in an exact phrase search.

Notice publication number

• You can search for a single notice
  • Example: "665741-2023" finds the specific notice.
• You can search for several notices
  • Example: "665741-2023 665740-2023" finds both notices.

Criteria groups

The nine criteria groups are the following:

• Text – has the same functionality as Quick search. It allows you to make a full text search by specifying the keyword(s) you want to search for.
• Business opportunities:
  • Planning:
    • Notice of the publication of a prior information notice or a periodic information notice on a buyer profile.
    • Prior information notice or a periodic indicative notice used only for information.
    • Prior information notice or a periodic indicative notice used to shorten time limits for receipt of tenders.
    • Prior information notice for public passenger transport services.
  • Competition:
    • Contract notice – light regime.
    • Contract or concession notice – standard regime.
    • Design contest notice.
    • Notice on the existence of a qualification system.
    • Prior information notice or a periodic indicative notice used as a call for competition – light regime.
    • Prior information notice or a periodic indicative notice used as a call for competition – standard regime.
    • Subcontracting notice.
  • Result:
    • Contract or concession award notice – standard regime.
    • Contract or concession award notice – light regime.
    • Design contest result notice.
    • Contract award notice for public passenger transport services.
  • More options – select the type of notice from a detailed list.
• Subject matter of the contract:
  • Common procurement vocabulary (CPV) – search by product or service group and its classification using the CPV code, e.g. chemical products (CPV code 24000000), gases (CPV code 24100000). You can read more on the TED designated page for CPV codes.
  • Nature of contract – search by contract type, i.e services, supplies or works.
  • Place of performance – search using the main location of works, or the main place of delivery of supplies, or performance of services.
  • Procurement value – search by the amounts indicated in notices in the fields containing ‘Estimated value’ or ‘Total value’ (minimum and/or maximum) and/or by a specific currency.
• Procedure:
  • Type of procedure – search by the type of procedure used for an invitation to tender, e.g. open, negotiated procedure.
  • Languages in which tenders can be submitted – search for notices in which potential tenderers are allowed to submit requests to participate in tenders in a specific language (or languages).
• Date:
  • Publication date – choose between a specific date or a time interval.
  • Deadline for submission – deadline by which expressions of interest, requests to participate or tenders can be submitted.
  • Deadline for additional information – final date for requesting additional information and/or clarifications by the potential tenderers. 
• Published in the Supplement to the Official Journal:
  • OJ S issue number – notices published in a particular OJ S edition.
  • Notice publication number – e.g. 308789-2024, 2024/S 100-308789.
• Buyer:
  • Official name (multilingual free-text field) – name of the buyer.
  • National registration number (free-text field - NOT multilingual) – e.g, DE 114 110 388 (Stadt Frankfurt am Main, Germany).
  • Country – where the buyer is based.
  • Town/city (multilingual free-text field) – where the buyer is based.
  • Type of buyer – e.g. regional authority, European institution, body or agency, international organisation.
  • Main activity – the main activity covered by the contract, e.g. education, health, housing and community amenities.
• Funding: choose between external aid programmes and European Investment Bank (EIB) non-EU promoters.
• Legal basis:
  • Legal basis – the EU public procurement directive or regulation under which the notice was issued.
  • Other legal basis (multilingual free-text field) – search for other legal bases which are not mentioned in the “Legal basis” field. 

Note: The following free text fields are multilingual (except Registration number) and have the same functionality as Quick Search:

• Buyer's official name
• Buyer's registration number
• Buyer's town/city
• Other legal basis

Other actions

At the top of the page, above Search scope, other actions can be selected.

Any user can use:

• Switch to expert mode link – convert the Advanced search into an Expert search
• Actions button – Print search criteria

Signed-in users can use two additional functionalities:

• Actions button – Load saved search
• Actions button – Save search criteria

Search field alias

The TED website contains hundreds of search fields, each with its own set of aliases. This means you can retrieve the same information using different aliases for the search fields.

For example, if you want to find notices published on 20 November 2024, you can use any of the queries listed below to get the same results:

• publication-date=20241120
• BT-05(a)-notice=20241120
• PD=20241120

In the example above, the search field publication-date has two aliases:

• BT-05(a)-notice: this alias corresponds to the field metadata of the eForms
  • For details regarding the field metadata, see in Field metadata: TED Developer Documentation
• PD: this alias is the search field that was used in the previous version of the TED website

Term operators

"Term operator" is the operator between a search field and the search term values.

The most frequently used term operators are:

• "="
• “~”
• “IN”
• comparison operators “>”,”<”, “>=”, “<=”

Search term values

Consider the following specific syntaxes and notes for search term values in Expert search:

Wildcards

• FT=(run*) will search for any word beginning with “run”
• classification-cpv = 30* will search for any CPV code beginning with "30"
• You can use wildcards in multilingual fields, but when you use them with the “~” or “IN” operator, the search will be performed on the stemmed search field values. For example, searching for runnin* will not return any results, as the word “running” has been stemmed to “run”.

Exact phrase

• FT~"Agriculture and Food" => will search for the phrase Agriculture and Food.
• The use of double quotes impacts the search results when used with a text or multilingual search field where the search is only performed for that exact phrase. For example:
  • the query buyer-country = FRA is identical to the query buyer-country = "FRA"
  • the query buyer-name ~ Council is identical to the query buyer-name ~ "Council" (because it is a single word)
  • but the query buyer-name ~ Council of the is invalid (because it is multiple words), whereas the query buyer-name ~ "Council of the" is valid. It would return notices where the phrase "Council of the" exists in the buyer-name field, e.g. notices where the buyer-name is the ‘Council of the European Union’ or "The Council of the City of Wakefield" etc.
• You cannot use wildcards in a phrase search.

Comparison

• You can use comparison operators also as a prefix for search term values.
• They can only be used in numerical search fields – including date, publication number and OJ S number.
• Example: TV = (>= 1000)

Time period

• You can use an initial to search for a time period (e.g. contract-duration-period-lot=5d).
• The allowed initials are “d” for day, “w” for week, “m” for month and “y” for year, regardless of the browsing language (i.e. “d” will be always “d” whatever the browsing language).
• The default time period is day.

Acronyms

There are several ways to proceed when looking for a combination of several acronyms e.g. “INFRABEL” or “STIB” or “SNCB” or “SNCF” or “RATP”:

• Optimal: FT IN (INFRABEL STIB SNCB SNCF RATP)
• Not optimal: FT = (INFRABEL OR STIB OR SNCB OR SNCF OR RATP)
• Not optimal: (FT ~ (INFRABEL)) OR (FT ~ (STIB)) OR (FT ~ (SNCB)) OR (FT ~ (SNCF)) OR (FT ~ (RATP))

Stemming

Stemming is a way of processing language by reducing words to their root or base form. The goal is to group together different inflected forms of a word so they can be analysed as a single item. This process helps improve the efficiency of text processing tasks like search and indexing.

Here are some examples of stemming:

     Note: stemming is language-specific and only applicable to multilingual search fields (e.g. FT). For example:

• FT~(running) – FT is multilingual, so running will be stemmed, i.e. reduced to the stem "run".
• buyer-name~(running) – buyer-name is not multilingual, so running will not be stemmed.

Transliteration

Transliteration is the process of converting text from one script to another, focusing on preserving the original sounds of words rather than their meaning. In TED searches, the target script is the Latin alphabet.

Transliteration helps users pronounce foreign words correctly by using familiar characters from their own alphabet or writing system.

Words already in the target script are not transliterated; for instance, the English word "computer" remains "computer," just as the French word "ordinateur" remains "ordinateur".

Here are some examples of transliteration:

Best practice

Examples of Expert queries:

Other actions

At the top of the page, above Search scope, other actions can be selected.

Any user can use:

• Actions button – Print search criteria

Signed-in users can use two additional functionalities:

• Actions button – Load saved search
• Actions button – Save search criteria specified in the "Expert query" box

Browse by business opportunity

This option displays the published notices, filtered by groups of business opportunities or by specific types of business opportunities. By clicking on a specific group of business opportunities or a specific type of business opportunity you will be taken to the search results page, containing the notices for that selection.

In addition, you can use the "Filter box" to search for a specific type of business opportunity. The terms that match your search criteria will be highlighted in yellow or behave according to the site preferences for TED signed-in users.

Browse by business sector (CPV)

This option displays the published notices, filtered by business sector. The business sectors are categorised in tree form, based on the "common procurement vocabulary" (CPV).

Expand the tree to search for specific notices.

You can also use the "Filter box" to search for a business sector or a CPV code. The terms that match your search criteria will be highlighted in yellow or behave according to the site preferences for TED signed-in users. By clicking on a specific business sector you will be taken to the search results page, containing the notices for that business sector.

Browse by place of performance

This option displays published notices, filtered by location of contract execution.

You can use the map on the right section to browse using the NUTS nomenclature (EU's nomenclature of territorial units for statistics), or by country. The default view for the map is countries, but using the menu on the right, you can:

• Zoom in / Zoom out
• View the map in another NUTS level (NUTS 1, NUTS 2, NUTS 3)
• Enter fullscreen / Exit fullscreen

The different colours identify the number of notices in the specific place of performance.

The legend is displayed in the bottom-left corner of the map.

Instead of using the map, you can navigate using the left section, in which you can search by:

• Expanding a specific place of performance
• Typing in the "Filter box" to find a specific place of performance. The terms that match your search criteria will be highlighted in yellow or behave according to the site preferences for TED signed-in users.

Each time you click on the "Expand button" for a specific place of performance, the map responds to your choice. By clicking on a specific place of performance you will be taken to the search results page, containing the notices for that place of performance.