The legal framework
Greek public procurement is governed by Law 4412/2016 (ν. 4412/2016), which transposes Directives 2014/24/EU and 2014/25/EU and has been amended many times since, most substantially by Law 4782/2021. Book I covers classic contracting authorities (ministries, regions, municipalities, hospitals, universities and other bodies governed by public law). Book II covers utilities in energy, water, transport and postal services. Book IV contains the review procedure before the Hellenic Single Public Procurement Authority (ΕΑΔΗΣΥ), which is mandatory before any court action.
The rules therefore look familiar to any EU supplier: open and restricted procedures, the ESPD, exclusion grounds and selection criteria, most economically advantageous tender, standstill periods. What differs is the machinery and the language.
The three systems
| System | What it is | What you use it for |
|---|---|---|
| ΚΗΜΔΗΣ (KIMDIS), Central Electronic Registry of Public Contracts | Publicity register. Every contract above 1,000 euros leaves five records: request, notice, award, contract, payment order. Each record gets a unique code, the ΑΔΑΜ. | Finding notices, seeing who won what at which price, and how quickly each authority pays. Free, no account needed. |
| ΕΣΗΔΗΣ (ESIDIS), National Electronic Public Procurement System | Tendering platform. Mandatory for every contract above 30,000 euros excluding VAT. Documents, questions, bid submission and all communication run through it. | Registering as an economic operator, downloading documents, submitting bids. |
| Διαύγεια (Diavgeia), Transparency Programme | Portal where every administrative decision must be posted before it takes effect, including budget commitments and award decisions. | Spotting budget commitments weeks before the notice, and verifying decisions. |
All three are reached through the portal at promitheus.gov.gr, redesigned in August 2026 with an English interface. The underlying documents remain in Greek.
Thresholds that matter
Below the EU thresholds, notices appear only in ΚΗΜΔΗΣ and in Greek, with a minimum of 15 days to bid. Above them, notices also appear in TED with English metadata and at least 30 days to bid. A foreign supplier who relies on TED alone sees only the largest Greek contracts.
Registering in ESIDIS
Registration is done once and covers all contracting authorities. Greek companies identify themselves through the tax authority's TAXISnet credentials. A company without a Greek tax number applies through the foreign-operator route, submitting company documents to the ESIDIS helpdesk, and should allow two to three weeks. Two registrations exist: one for supplies and services, one for public works.
Every document you author and upload (the ESPD, your technical and financial offer, declarations) must carry a qualified electronic signature. Qualified certificates from any trust service provider on the EU trusted lists are accepted, so a signature from your home country works. Public documents issued by third parties are uploaded as they are.
Language
Bids are submitted in Greek. Certificates and public documents issued in another language must be accompanied by a certified translation, with limited exceptions for technical brochures and manufacturer documentation, which many tender documents allow in English. The ESPD is filled in through the national service at espd.eprocurement.gov.gr, which has an English interface, but the signed output is normally in Greek. In practice, a foreign supplier needs either a Greek partner or a local representative for anything beyond a one-off bid.
How a bid is structured
A bid has three electronic sub-folders: participation documents (the ESPD and the participation guarantee), the technical offer (compliance sheet, brochures, certificates), and the financial offer, entered in the system's form and also uploaded as a signed PDF. The first two are opened together; the financial offer is opened only for bidders found technically compliant. The winning bidder is then asked to produce the evidence behind its ESPD declarations within ten days.
Guarantees
A participation guarantee of up to 2% of the estimated value excluding VAT is required in most open procedures, valid for at least 30 days beyond the offer validity period. The performance guarantee is 4% of the estimated value for supplies and services and 5% for works. Guarantees may be issued by any bank or insurer authorised in the EU or EEA, so a guarantee from your home bank is acceptable if it follows the template in the tender documents and is addressed to the correct authority.
Review and appeals
Any act of the contracting authority in a procedure above 30,000 euros can be challenged by a pre-judicial appeal before ΕΑΔΗΣΥ within 10 days of electronic notification (15 days in other cases). Terms of the tender documents themselves are deemed known 15 days after publication in ΚΗΜΔΗΣ. The fee is 0.5% of the estimated value, minimum 600 and maximum 15,000 euros, refunded if the appeal succeeds. While an appeal is pending the contract cannot be signed. Court action follows only after the Authority's decision.
Payment
The legal payment deadline is 30 days from receipt of the invoice or completion of acceptance, 60 days for public health bodies. Late payment interest accrues automatically at the ECB reference rate plus eight percentage points. In practice payment times vary widely by authority, and hospitals in particular carry large arrears. Since June 2024 every invoice to a Greek contracting authority must be an electronic invoice issued through a certified provider, carrying the ΑΔΑΜ code of the contract; a PDF is not accepted. Withholding tax of 4% on goods and 8% on services is deducted from each payment and credited against Greek income tax, which a foreign supplier without a Greek permanent establishment recovers under the applicable double taxation treaty.
Practical advice
- Do not rely on TED. Most Greek contracts sit below the EU thresholds and never reach it. Monitor ΚΗΜΔΗΣ by CPV code, or use a service that does.
- Watch the budget commitments. Greek authorities publish the request and the budget commitment in ΚΗΜΔΗΣ and Διαύγεια weeks before the notice. That is the moment to introduce your company.
- Read the award history. Award decisions in ΚΗΜΔΗΣ show who wins in your category, at what discount to the estimate, and how many bidders there were.
- Get the signature and registration first. Both take weeks; a 15-day bidding window does not.
- Price the payment delay. Check how quickly the specific authority has paid past suppliers before bidding on a thin margin.
The GOVADI Procurement Platform reads every ΚΗΜΔΗΣ and TED publication, matches it to your CPV codes and returns an AI fit report in English for each tender: a 0 to 100 score, a BID or NO-BID recommendation and a criterion by criterion breakdown of what you cover, what is missing and what excludes you, read from the Greek documents. Authority profiles show what each buyer purchases, from whom, and how fast it pays.
Frequently asked questions
Can a company without a Greek tax number bid on Greek public tenders?
Yes. Any economic operator established in the EU or in a country party to the WTO Government Procurement Agreement may bid. Registration in ESIDIS follows the foreign-operator route with company documents instead of TAXISnet credentials, and documents must be in Greek or accompanied by certified translations.
Are Greek tenders published in English?
Only those above the EU thresholds appear in TED with English metadata. The tender documents themselves are in Greek in almost all cases, and bids must be submitted in Greek.
Is a qualified electronic signature from another EU country accepted in ESIDIS?
Yes. Qualified certificates from any provider on the EU trusted lists are accepted for signing bid documents.
How long does Greek public sector payment take?
The legal deadline is 30 days, or 60 days for health bodies. Actual times vary widely by authority; the payment orders published in ΚΗΜΔΗΣ show how fast each one pays.