Guide
How to bid on federal government contracts
Federal departments reported 1,087,847 contracts over $10,000 since Jan 2004. This guide covers what a business does before its first bid on one, in plain language, with a link to the official page behind each step.
Where the tenders are
Federal tenders are posted on CanadaBuys, the government’s official site for tender and award notices. Anyone can read them for free, without registering. ContractTrail lists the same tenders (766 open as of October 12, 2026) with who won the last ones like each: open federal tenders.
Small purchases often never become a tender. Public Services and Procurement Canada treats buys under $25,000 for goods and $40,000 for services and construction as low dollar value, often bought straight from a vendor. Above those amounts, departments solicit bids or quotes. Much repeat work also goes through standing offers and supply arrangements, lists of pre-qualified suppliers set up by an earlier tender: how those work.
The steps
- Register as a supplier: What you need before you can bid on a federal tender in Canada: a SAP Business Network account through CanadaBuys, a CRA business number before award, and a procurement business number for some bids.
- Kinds of tenders: What each kind of federal tender notice on CanadaBuys means for a bidder, with how many of each were published since 2022.
- Standing offers and supply arrangements: How federal standing offers, supply arrangements and call-ups work, and why getting on them is how many firms win repeat government work.
- Reading an RFP: How federal bids are evaluated: mandatory and point-rated criteria, lowest price versus best value, questions, amendments, debriefs and complaints.
- Security clearance: When a federal tender needs your organization to hold a security clearance, how the Contract Security Program sponsors one, and how long it takes.
- Small and Indigenous business: Procurement Assistance Canada’s free help, and how the Procurement Strategy for Indigenous Business and its set-asides work.
Before you spend days on a bid
Every open tender page on ContractTrail has a “Should you bid?” section: who won the last contract like it, what work like it went for, how many bids that buyer usually gets, and how much of that kind of work went to smaller firms. The figures come from CanadaBuys award notices since Aug 2022 and the contracts departments report to the Treasury Board.
Free help with the process is available from the government itself: Procurement Assistance Canada. For help writing a bid, see getting help with a bid.