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Of 405,520 companies with staff, 9,710 bid via TenderNed in 2017–2021, about 2.4%. Size mainly decides whether a company takes part.
Checked on 15-09-2026
Statistics Netherlands (CBS), together with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), studied which companies take part in public tenders (BAT-lab, December 2024). TenderNed data from 2017 to 2021 was linked to CBS company data. The study covers 12,240 open tenders, on which 9,710 different Dutch companies submitted bids.
In 2021 the study population comprised 405,520 companies with more than one working person, excluding sole traders. Setting the 9,710 bidders against that number, about 2.4% of those companies bid at least once on an open tender via TenderNed in five years. That percentage is our own division of the two CBS figures; CBS does not state it itself. The real share is probably somewhat higher, because only tenders that ran entirely through TenderNed were included.
Those who take part are on average larger and older than the average company. Micro-enterprises make up 83% of companies but 29% of bidders. Small enterprises are 13% of companies and 39% of bidders, medium-sized enterprises 3% against 22%, large enterprises 1% against 11%.
According to CBS, company size is most strongly associated with the chance that a company takes part. Larger companies also win more often, but at the award stage size plays a smaller role than at the bidding stage. In the words of CBS: once companies have submitted a bid, the size of the company matters less.
What this means for you: the biggest threshold is the decision to start, not the assessment afterwards. The vast majority of companies with staff never bid on an open tender. Those who do take the step are then mainly judged on the bid itself. If your company is of some size, you belong to the groups that already bid more often in proportion.
These articles explain how public tendering works; they are not legal advice. If you are unsure about a specific tender, ask your question through the clarification round or consult a lawyer.
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