Finding tenders on the eTender Publication Portal
What National Treasury's eTender Publication Portal is, which tenders must be published there, how to search it, and where awards and cancellations appear.
Checked against the official sources listed below on 11 October 2026.
What the portal is
The eTender Publication Portal (www.etenders.gov.za) is National Treasury's central site for public-sector tenders. It describes itself as giving access to information on tenders from public-sector organisations in all spheres of government, and it states that there is no charge to contracting authorities or suppliers for the service.
What must be published there
That makes the portal the first place to look for open competitive bids. Requests for price quotations do not have to be published there: they are invited from suppliers registered on the Central Supplier Database, which is one more reason to register.
- National and provincial departments, constitutional institutions and the public entities listed in Schedules 2 and 3 of the PFMA must publish their open competitive bids there, with the complete set of bid documents, for at least 21 days except in urgent cases (a National Treasury instruction in force since 1 November 2022). They must also publish amendments, cancellations, the list of bidders within 10 working days of closing, and award information within 10 working days after the successful bidder accepts. Publishing requests for price quotations there is not compulsory.
- Municipalities and municipal entities are required to advertise all their bids there and to publish notices of awarded bids, cancellations and deviations.
Searching
You can narrow the list of open tenders by category, province, organ of state and tender type, or look up a tender by its number. Logging in uses your Central Supplier Database credentials, and you need to be logged in to bookmark tenders or subscribe to tender notifications.
Awards and cancellations
The portal shows a tender's status — published, awarded or cancelled — and publishes award notices, so it is also where you see who won a tender you bid for. A municipality must publish a cancelled bid's notice on the same day or, at the latest, the day after.
Where Govermate fits
Govermate lists the open tenders it holds by province, each with its recorded closing date, so you can browse them in one place. Whatever you find, the tender document published by the organ of state is the one to bid on.
Official sources
- eTender Publication Portal home page(opens the official page in a new tab)National Treasury
- About the eTender Publication Portal(opens the official page in a new tab)National Treasury
- eTender Publication Portal: tender opportunities(opens the official page in a new tab)National Treasury
- PFMA SCM Instruction No. 09 of 2022/23: mandatory utilisation of the e-Tender Portal(opens the official page in a new tab)National Treasury
- MFMA Circular No. 83: eTender Publication Portal(opens the official page in a new tab)National Treasury