You get as many calendar days as that notice prints between publication and the submission deadline. The useful comparison is the country’s usual window, taken from a year of TED competition notices, checked before anyone starts writing.
The ranking is the working chart. It orders 28 markets by the share of measurable notices with under 21 days to bid, from 14 July 2025 to 14 July 2026. Europe, on 165,102 notices with both dates, sits at 22.3%. Croatia is at 51.8%, with a median of 20.0 days. France is at 11.2%, with a median of 32.1 days.
The map is the same share, drawn by country, so a bid lead can see the neighbourhood around a target market rather than only the rank order.
Check the notice, then the country, then the team
Use three steps before the writing starts.
- Read the deadline in calendar days from the publication date to the submission date on that notice.
- Compare it with that country’s usual window: the median, and the share of notices under 21 days.
- Decide whether this team can answer this notice in the days that remain.
A Croatian notice at 18 days sits inside the normal run of that market. A median there of 20.0 days means half the measurable notices are already at or under three weeks. A French notice at 18 days is the exception: only 11.2% of measurable French notices are that short, and the median is 32.1 days. Both can be worth bidding. They ask for different staffing.
The Netherlands is the case that breaks a single rule of thumb. The median is 46.1 days, the longest in this set, and 16.4% of measurable Dutch notices still fall under 21 days. “Dutch buyers give you time” is true of the typical notice and false of that tail.
A short window here is a fact about the notice. These counts do not say the deadline was unlawful. Legal minimums depend on the procedure, and this chart does not sort notices by procedure.
If the days that remain cannot cover qualification, questions, price, review, and submission, time is a reason to decline. The decision belongs in the bid or no-bid check, and the backward plan belongs in the tender response timeline. What the window is, and why the median map is a second picture, is in what a tender response window is.
Sources
- TED competition notices with a measurable response window, 14 July 2025 to 14 July 2026. 36,776 of 165,102 notices, 22.3%, had under 21 days. Calendar days, unadjusted for procedure type or sector.
- Directive 2014/24/EU.
