Selling SaaS to governments in Europe

Open Opportunities Research, 16 September 2026. Covers the 27 EU member states, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Serbia and the EU institutions, with the UK as the comparison.

25 government contracts in 13 European countries are open today to any software company that meets their conditions, and the buyers put their combined value at €33bn. We found them by reading the notice that set each contract up and the rules of the body that runs it, for every European country, and by checking each one against the Open Opportunities record of what its buyers went on to award.

The comparison is the UK, where G-Cloud lists 4,000 suppliers and paid out £2.9bn in 2024/25, and Digital Outcomes and Specialists 7 adds a £14.4bn, six-year route for building software to order.

Nine of the 25 are national: open buying systems in Finland, Denmark and Spain, Consip's SDAPA and MePA in Italy, UGAP's catalogue of 3,000 software publishers in France, Poland's ZUCH cloud marketplace, national systems in Slovakia and Czechia, and the EU institutions' Cloud III. Four countries have open contracts run by a single ministry, agency or region: Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Belgium. Luxembourg, Estonia and Greece have no such contract but tender each application separately at sizes a small firm could deliver.

Ten countries buy software development and software as a service only through fixed panels of 3 to 10 suppliers chosen once every four years, several with turnover conditions a ten-person company cannot meet, and thirteen have no central contract and tender each system on its own. For each of 32 European countries and the UK, this report gives the contract, who can get in, how much is bought through it, and when the next chance to join comes.

The UK model separates two things. G-Cloud 15 (awarded 6 August 2026, replacing G-Cloud 14 from 28 October 2026) is the catalogue for cloud hosting, software and support. Software built to order, including discovery, alpha and beta phases, is bought through Digital Outcomes and Specialists 7 (live 30 January 2026 to 29 January 2032, £14.4bn estimated, four lots, won by answering a written brief). Both reopen to new suppliers under the Procurement Act 2023, DOS 7 about every 18 months, and both now require Cyber Essentials (Cyber Essentials Plus for G-Cloud’s hosting lots). A UK supplier looking at Europe needs two answers for each country, where the software catalogue is and where the development panel is, and this report gives both for every market.

About this report

This report examines 11,284 contract awards for IT services (CPV code 72) published between 1 September 2025 and 9 September 2026 by buyers in 32 European countries and the UK, together with a five-year series of 18,079 awards for the eleven markets we covered first (Denmark, Finland, Spain, France, Sweden, Italy, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland). Open Opportunities assigns the CPV code to every notice as part of its own processing, reading the sources listed on the coverage page; the two counts use different matching rules, explained on the methodology page, and should not be compared with each other.

For each country we identified the central contract for software as a service and for software development, read the notice that set it up or the rules published by the body that runs it, recorded who can join and on what terms, and counted the later awards that name it. Where Open Opportunities holds no notice for a contract, the source is the running body’s website or the trade press. The notices, search strings and sources are on the methodology page.

Thirteen countries have a contract a new supplier can join today, nine of them national. Finland, Denmark, Spain, Italy, France, Poland, Slovakia, Czechia and the EU institutions run national systems. Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Belgium have systems run by one ministry, agency or region that are open in the same way.

For software development, most countries use fixed panels of 3 to 10 suppliers chosen once every four years. Finland, Denmark, Spain, Slovakia and Czechia let a developer join at any time; the German and Dutch systems do the same for the bodies that run them. Every panel and its conditions.

Thirteen countries have no central contract and tender each system separately. Among them Luxembourg, where the state IT centre tenders each application at €377k to €982k, sizes a small firm can deliver alone.

No European contract publishes its orders the way G-Cloud does. 1,535 UK awards name G-Cloud 14. The most-named European contracts are Finland's Hansel system (127), Denmark's SKI 02.19 (78), Spain's SDA 26/2021 (71) and Italy's SDAPA (55). What each count measures.

Spain can be sized from its awards alone. Spanish buyers publish a value on 1,378 of 1,540 IT services awards, half above €468k, and 71 name the open contract. German buyers publish a value on 430 of 1,463; the buyer, the contract and the winner on the rest are what tell you the market. Awards and values for every country.

Two chances to join come within twelve months. Spain's replacement for SDA 26/2021 is due to be advertised in the second half of 2026, and Finland's Hansel systems accept applications at any time to 2033 and 2034. The full timeline.

This report will help you learn

Which contracts, in which countries, are open today and what each asks of a supplier. Where buying really goes through the contract and where it exists on paper only. Which countries are worth entering through a partner already on a fixed panel, and which panels reopen first.

Every notice in the Open Opportunities database is given a CPV code by its own processing; that code selected the 11,284 records in this report. The kind of contract is not a field in any notice. We identified each one by reading the notice that set it up and the documents of the body that runs it, and then searching later notices for its name. Four kinds appear. The terms below are the ones a supplier will meet on TED and on the buyers’ own sites, and the rest of this report uses them exactly as defined here.

Dynamic purchasing system (DPS in the UK and Spain; DIS in Denmark and Sweden; DNS in Czechia and Slovakia; DAS in the Netherlands; DBS in Germany; SDA in Spain and Italy). Open for its whole life. Any supplier that meets the conditions is let in at any time. For each purchase the buyer invites offers from the suppliers already in the system, a step called a mini-competition; SKI's Danish systems also allow the buyer to order directly. This is the G-Cloud model. EU law sets no maximum life: Finland's run to 2033 and 2034, Czechia's can run indefinitely.

Framework with several suppliers. A panel chosen once, for up to four years. Buyers order directly from a panel member or run a mini-competition among them. A supplier not on the panel waits for the next competition.

Cascade framework. A ranked panel. The buyer goes to the first-ranked supplier and moves down the list only if that supplier declines. Belgium's federal digital agency BOSA uses three.

Framework with one supplier. One supplier per lot, held in a central catalogue. Germany's Kaufhaus des Bundes and Austria's BBG work this way for named technologies (C#/.NET, mobile apps, SAP, Scrum coaching).

Two more terms recur. A call-off is an order placed under any of these contracts. A lot is a section of a contract for one kind of work; a supplier bids for lots, not for the whole contract. The country glossaries on this site (UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark) give each term in the local language.

DIGIT-TM III is worth €3.97bn and needed €200m to €600m of annual turnover to enter. Spain's SDA 26/2021 is worth €748m, caps each contract at €862k, and was open to any firm passing a turnover test. For a small supplier, whether it can get in probably matters more than how big the contract is.

Countries with a contract that is open today

Nine countries and the EU institutions run a national system a supplier can join at any time. For each: the route for software as a service, the route for development, what it takes to get in, and the size the buyer has published.

Countries that buy through fixed panels

Fourteen markets buy development, and in most cases software as a service too, through panels chosen once every four years. France, Italy and the EU institutions appear above as well, because each also runs an open route.

Countries with no central contract

Thirteen countries tender each system separately. Germany and the Netherlands are not in this group: neither has a national contract, but both have open systems run by individual bodies. Award counts are IT services awards in the twelve months to September 2026.

Across the first eleven countries, IT services awards rose from 2,292 in 2022 to 3,769 in 2023, 4,043 in 2024 and 4,957 in 2025; the first eight months of 2026 produced 3,013, against 4,957 for all of 2025. The rise combines more buying with fuller publication under the EU's eForms standard.

eForms changed what European buyers publish: awards carrying a value rose from 706 of 4,043 in 2024 to 2,272 of 4,957 in 2025 and 1,984 of 3,013 so far in 2026. From 2025 the total value of IT services awards can be tracked year on year: 2025 closed at €43.3bn and 2026 stands at €34.7bn after eight months.

For each country: the number of IT services contracts awarded in the twelve months, the total of the values buyers published, how many awards carried a value, and the typical contract, meaning the value that half the awards are above and half below. Each country links to its entry above.

Each award is counted if its CPV code is 72 or one of the nine four-digit groups under it. Countries whose buyers code at group level are counted in full on that basis: Portugal 339 awards, France 352, Italy 119, Estonia 117, Lithuania 120. Slovenia and Serbia are not yet in this series. Download this table (CSV).

The thirteen countries with an open contract awarded €53.5bn of IT services contracts in the twelve months to September 2026. The buyers' own estimates put about €4bn a year through the six open contracts that publish a maximum value (Hansel about €2bn, Consip €0.75bn, the Dutch Defence software contract €0.65bn, SKI 02.14 €0.5bn, Spain €0.12bn): a small share of the buying, and the share a new entrant can reach. Software licences (CPV code 48) are outside this figure.

Denmark's €19.4bn rests on one €5.9bn award, and half of Danish awards are worth more than €2.1m, so the figure measures a few outsourcing deals rather than software development. Belgium's €3.9bn includes the €1.4bn DIGIT-TM III lot. Italian buyers make purchases below the EU threshold through MePA, which does not publish award notices, so the 119 awards are Italy's above-threshold market; for the rest, Consip's own MePA statistics are the source.

Open Opportunities holds 1,535 awards that name G-Cloud 14 and 42 that name Digital Outcomes 6, whose buyers cite the reference number RM1043.8 more often than the name (both come from Contracts Finder and Find a Tender). Counted the same way, Finland's IT consultancy system is named in 127 awards, because Hansel publishes each order as an award (Yle's application development at €1.05m, for example). Denmark's SKI 02.19 is named in 78; Danish municipalities publish the award and, on 13 of 100 records inspected, the value. Spain's SDA 26/2021 is named in 71, with values. Italy's SDAPA is named in 55, all orders above the EU threshold published on TED. Germany's Kaufhaus des Bundes is named in 12, UGAP appears as the buyer in 11 French records, DIGIT-TM III and Cloud III in 9, Kammarkollegiet's software and services contract in 9, Consip's application services in 6 and MePA in 2.

UGAP, Consip's MePA and Kammarkollegiet report turnover on their contracts themselves, and their buyers do not publish orders as notices, so for those three the count measures the contract notices and the running body's figure measures use.

The gap between 1,535 and 78 is at least partly a difference in what buyers publish: SKI expects about DKK 90bn (€12bn) through 02.14 alone over 25 years, and suppliers in the system can see every purchase request inside it, but 78 awards are published. UK buyers publish a Contracts Finder award for every G-Cloud order. Danish municipalities publish only direct orders above the EU threshold; Swedish and Italian buyers publish almost none under the contract's name. In Sweden, Italy, Hungary and Portugal buyers do not publish orders on their public portals or via TED, so the panel and the contract's value are the available public measures of the market. In Finland and Spain the orders can be read directly with values; in Denmark they can be counted, with values on a minority.

Spain caps each order at €862,000; six of the 71 published orders, read in September 2026, were worth about €120,000 to €765,000 and went to Adif, the Interior Ministry, the Culture Ministry and the Region of Murcia. Six is too few to say what a typical one is worth. Finland publishes the value of each order; Yle’s application development award was €1.05m over five years. In the UK, of the 1,165 IT services awards in the same twelve months, 1,031 carried a value; half were worth more than €264k, and the middle half ran from €83k to €1.12m.

The orders under Spain's and Finland's open contracts fall inside that UK middle range. A company already delivering G-Cloud or Digital Outcomes work between about €115k and €1.15m (£100k to £1m) is already working at the size these contracts buy.

The suppliers below are named as recipients on the contracts discussed above, taken from the award notices and the announcements of the bodies that run them.

UK G-Cloud. 4,000 suppliers, 90% of them small or medium-sized. SMEs took 37% of spend in 2024/25 and 44% in 2023/24.

Italy, Consip PAL ed.3. IBM, Engineering, Almaviva, Accenture, Enterprise Services (DXC), Exprivia; Intellera and BIP on the project management lot.

Sweden, Systemutveckling. C.A.G, Decerno, IT-huset, Magello, B3 Consulting, Omegapoint.

EU institutions, DIGIT-TM III. Consortia including Tremend-Publicis, Kyndryl, Unisystems, Fujitsu, Seidor, ARHS, Accenture, Thaleria, Aricoma, Alten and Fincons.

Hungary, DKÜ development contract. A 4iG-led consortium, a Delta Systems-led consortium and three others.

Switzerland, QRM-26. Amstein + Walthert Progress, Eraneos, Baeriswyl Tschanz & Partner, BEG Impact, BKI, CSP, EY, Ironforge, Linkin, Rexult.

Norway, education directorate 2025 to 2029. Experis, Bekk, Capgemini, Netcompany, Computas, Netlight.

Estonia, RIT contract. Nortal, Gofore, Trinidad Wiseman, Tietoevry, Telia, Elisa, Finestmedia, ByteLife and 15 others.

Germany, Kaufhaus des Bundes and the federal IT centre. CGI, Bechtle with AWS, Gofore, msg.

Denmark, SKI 02.19. Formpipe, with an order of DKK 20.2m (about €2.7m) from Glostrup municipality; 46 suppliers on the municipal lot.

Poland, COI. yarrl, on the Ministry of Finance development contract of 2026.

France, DINUM 3rd generation. Not yet in notices.

Every contract above is scored on five questions, two points each, ten in total. Can a supplier join? (At any time, 2; in periodic windows with a large panel, 1; fixed panel or single supplier, 0.) What does it take to get in? (A declaration or nothing, 2; turnover or insurance of about €1m or less, 1; turnover above €5m or a consortium, 0.) How big are the orders? (Capped or typically under €1m, 2; mixed, 1; above €5m, 0.) How is work won? (Direct order or a light competition among members, 2; a documented competition, 1; a full tender for every order, 0.) Are wins published? (With values, 2; some, 1; none, 0.)

10: UK G-Cloud 14 (comparison).

8: Spain SDA 26/2021; Italy MePA; France innovative purchases below €100k.

7: UK Digital Outcomes and Specialists 7 (development comparison); Finland Hansel 00777 and 00871; Denmark SKI 02.19 and SKI 02.14; Italy SDAPA ICT; France UGAP catalogue; Poland ZUCH; Slovakia MIRRI system; Netherlands IT staff systems; Flemish IT staff marketplace; Norway agency system (Nkom); Estonia per-system tenders (RIA); Luxembourg per-application tenders (CTIE); Greece DigiGOV-innoHUB pilots.

6: Czechia cloud system and Ministry of Finance system; Netherlands Defence software system; German systems run by individual bodies; Norway DFØ marketplace; Lithuania CPO LT catalogue.

5: EU Cloud III; Estonia RIT 23-supplier contract; Ireland department tenders.

4: France DINUM contract; Switzerland QRM-26 and Data & AI; Romania ADR contracts; Greece KtP project tenders.

3: Poland COI cloud contracts; Germany Kaufhaus des Bundes and government cloud broker; Austria BBG contracts; Netherlands VNG contracts; Sweden IT consultancy contracts and Adda; Belgium BOSA cascade; Portugal eSPap IT consultancy; Switzerland Public Clouds Bund; Ireland OGP Microsoft contract.

2: Italy Consip application services; EU DIGIT-TM III; Sweden Systemutveckling; Norway agency panels; Flemish IT contracts 2022; Hungary DKÜ SWF25; Croatia licence contracts; Serbia central contracts.

The contracts that score 7 or 8 are of two kinds: national open systems with a cap on order size (Spain) or an easy way in (Slovakia, Italy's SDAPA), and countries where one capable buyer tenders each project at under €1m (Luxembourg's CTIE, Estonia's RIA). A small firm can sell to Luxembourg by answering CTIE's notices on TED. Only five continental routes score 2 for published wins (Spain's system, Finland's Hansel systems, and per-project tendering in Luxembourg, Estonia and Greece), because nothing in Europe matches the UK rule that every G-Cloud order goes on Contracts Finder: the open systems in Denmark, Slovakia, Poland and Czechia publish who has joined but do not publish as much on awards, so intelligence on competitors is limited and comes from the buyer's notices and the body that runs the contract. Every contract scoring 2 or 3 is closed by a size rule rather than a capability test: panels capped at 3 to 10, turnover conditions of €200m (DIGIT-TM III) or a minimum order of €5m (Consip). Those rules exclude by size, and the practical route for a small firm is subcontracting to a panel member until the next competition.

Now to 2034. Hansel 00777 and 00871 (Finland) accept applications continuously. Slovakia's MIRRI system reaches the end of its 48 months in December 2026 unless extended, and no notice for a successor was found. Czechia's Ministry of Finance system runs to April 2030.

Second half of 2026. Spain advertises the replacement for SDA 26/2021 as an open system with a pre-qualification stage. Check the order cap and the turnover test when it is published.

2026. Consip (Italy) awards ID 2860 (€3.78bn); orders above €5m follow for 18 months. Poland's COI issues more central cloud contracts as the new central purchaser. The Dutch Defence software system (€1.3bn) accepts applications to end 2027. Germany's DVC 2.0 programme starts, with private software offerings to be admitted during it.

2026 to 2027. DIGIT-TM III competitions among the lot holders begin and the Cloud III sovereign cloud contracts (€180m, six years) start delivery (EU institutions). Kammarkollegiet reports on the national open system for innovative digital products that the Swedish government commissioned in February 2026; if set up, it would be Sweden's first contract that new suppliers can join at any time. The Swiss Government Cloud takes over from 2027; the hyperscaler contracts run alongside it to 2031.

2027. Sweden's Systemutveckling contract (awarded December 2023) comes up for competition. The Flemish IT staff marketplace contract (Belgium) ends on 15 February 2027. The UK's G-Cloud 15 (£14bn estimated over four years, awarded 6 August 2026) and DOS 7 (£14.4bn over six years) are the comparison for the period.

2028. Finland's IT-konsultointi 2023-2028 closes on 11 June 2028; its scope is already covered by 00777.

2029. France's DINUM contract comes up for competition; the list of buyers using it grew from 24 to 31 and its estimate from €66m spent to €195m.

Europe has no single G-Cloud, but 25 contracts in 13 countries, worth €33bn on their buyers' estimates, are open today: nine through national systems (Finland, Denmark, Spain, Italy, France, Poland, Slovakia, Czechia and the EU institutions for cloud) and four through open systems run by ministries, agencies or regions (Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Belgium's Flanders), with Luxembourg, Estonia and Greece reachable by answering their per-application tenders. For software development specifically, seven countries let a supplier join at any time (Finland, Denmark, Spain, Slovakia, Czechia, and the German and Dutch systems run by individual bodies), ten use only fixed panels of 3 to 10 suppliers chosen every four years, and thirteen have no central contract at all. The largest contract in Europe, DIGIT-TM III at €3.97bn, needed €200m of turnover to enter; the easiest to join, Spain's SDA 26/2021, caps orders at €862k and is about to be re-advertised.

The measure we would use to decide where to invest is whether wins are published: 1,535 UK awards name G-Cloud 14, 78 Danish awards name SKI 02.19, 127 Finnish awards name Hansel's system, 71 Spanish awards name SDA 26/2021, and 9 Swedish awards name a contract Kammarkollegiet values at SEK 2.6bn. Where buyers publish their orders, the awards size the market; where they do not, the notice that set up the contract does.

The method and the data

Every number above traces to a platform query or a named source. The queries, search strings, record counts, the notices held for each contract and the known limits are on the methodology page.

Two tables are available to download: IT services awards by country (CSV), one row per market with awards, valued awards, published value and the typical contract; and the 25 open contracts (CSV), one row per contract with who runs it, what it takes to get in, its published value, how long it stays open and the Open Opportunities reference.

Related reading on this site: why public tenders are hard to find, on what keyword search misses; digital and technology procurement trends 2025; and the EU’s €1.3bn digital investment. To follow the awards under any contract named here, describe what you sell and Open Opportunities finds the notices that keyword search misses.