What is a tender? A plain-language guide

A tender is how a government department, a municipality, or a state-owned company like Transnet or Eskom buys what it needs. Rather than quietly picking a supplier, it has to publish the requirement and let businesses bid. The bid that scores best on price and compliance wins the contract. That's the whole idea.

Why bother with them? Government is the biggest customer in the country. It spends hundreds of billions of rand a year through procurement, and a real share of that is meant for small and medium businesses. One contract can be a year of work.

How it actually goes

A buyer advertises a tender with a scope and a closing date. You find one that matches what you do, put a bid together (your price, plus the documents that prove you're allowed to trade with government), and submit before the deadline. The buyer scores every bid that arrived on time and awards the contract. Miss the deadline by a minute and you're simply not in the running.

What you need before you bid

Almost every public tender expects you to be on the Central Supplier Database, to hold a valid tax compliance status, and, for construction work, a CIDB grading. The other guides cover each of those.

Want to look around first? Browse open tenders by sector or province. It's free and you don't need an account.