TED Europa vs SAM.gov: Healthcare Procurement Compared (2026)

TED Europa is the EU's central portal for public procurement across 27 member states, while SAM.gov is the single system for US federal government contracts. The biggest differences are geographic coverage, classification systems (CPV codes vs NAICS codes), and contract scale. If you sell medical devices, pharmaceuticals, or healthcare services to government buyers, you'll likely need to monitor both. This guide compares them side by side.

TED Europa vs SAM.gov at a glance

Feature	TED Europa	SAM.gov
Region	European Union (27 member states)	United States (federal government)
Annual value	€600B+ across all sectors	$700B+ in federal contracts
Classification	CPV codes	NAICS & PSC codes
Volume	500,000+ notices per year	Hundreds of thousands of active opportunities
Languages	24 official EU languages	English
Special programs	Framework agreements, DPS	Small business set-asides, socioeconomic categories

What is TED Europa?

TED (Tenders Electronic Daily) is the online version of the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union. It publishes public procurement notices from all EU member states above certain value thresholds. For healthcare suppliers, TED is the primary way to discover hospital equipment tenders, pharmaceutical framework agreements, and medical service contracts across Europe.

TED uses CPV codes (Common Procurement Vocabulary) to classify what's being bought. For example, 33100000 covers medical equipment. Notices are published in 24 languages, which is both a strength (full EU coverage) and a challenge (you may need translation to search effectively).

What is SAM.gov?

SAM.gov (System for Award Management) is the US federal government's single point of entry for finding and bidding on federal contracts. It replaced the older FedBizOpps (FBO) system. For healthcare suppliers, SAM.gov is where you find opportunities from agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Health and Human Services.

SAM.gov uses NAICS codes (North American Industry Classification System) and PSC codes (Product Service Codes). A key feature is set-asides, contracts reserved for small businesses or specific socioeconomic categories, which can be a major advantage for qualifying suppliers.

Key differences for healthcare suppliers

1. Classification systems don't match

The single biggest practical challenge: TED uses CPV codes and SAM.gov uses NAICS/PSC codes. There's no direct one-to-one mapping. A supplier selling the same product to both markets has to learn two completely different classification systems to search effectively.

2. Contract structure differs

EU procurement leans heavily on framework agreements, multi-year arrangements with pre-approved suppliers. US federal procurement uses mechanisms like IDIQ (Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity) contracts and GSA Schedules. Understanding the structure matters as much as finding the opportunity.

3. Set-asides are a US-specific advantage

If you qualify as a small business, SAM.gov's set-aside contracts can dramatically improve your win rate, there's no direct EU equivalent at the same scale.

The challenge: monitoring both at once

Most growing healthcare suppliers eventually sell into both markets. But TED and SAM.gov have completely separate interfaces, search systems, alert mechanisms, and classification codes. Add NHS Supply Chain and WHO procurement to the mix, and you're juggling four or five different portals every day, each in its own format, currency, and language.

This makes it almost impossible to answer simple cross-market questions like "what are all the open MRI equipment tenders worldwide right now?" or "how do contract values for ventilators compare between the EU and US?"

How HealthProcure Intel unifies both

This is exactly the gap HealthProcure Intel fills. We aggregate procurement data from TED Europa, SAM.gov, WHO, and NHS Supply Chain into a single normalised API and dashboard, so you can:

• Search EU and US healthcare tenders together with one query
• See all values normalised to USD for true cross-market comparison
• Filter by category across both CPV and NAICS classifications automatically
• Compare contract award data and win rates between regions
• Get a single alert feed instead of checking five portals daily

You can start free, no credit card, and query both TED and SAM.gov data immediately.

Frequently asked questions

Can a non-US company bid on SAM.gov contracts?

Yes, though you'll need to register in SAM.gov, obtain a Unique Entity ID, and meet the specific requirements of each solicitation. Some contracts are restricted to US firms, but many are open to international suppliers.

Is TED Europa free to use?

Yes, TED is free to search. The cost is the time and language barrier involved in monitoring it consistently across 24 languages and 27 countries.

Which should I prioritise, TED or SAM.gov?

It depends on where your customers are. If you're EU-based, start with TED; if US-based, start with SAM.gov. But if you sell internationally, you need both, which is the case aggregation tools are built for.