eTenders Portal (South Africa)

What the portal publishes, and who must use it

The eTender Publication Portal is operated by National Treasury's Office of the Chief Procurement Officer and has run since 1 April 2015, launched alongside the Central Supplier Database. PFMA SCM Instruction No. 09 of 2022/23 makes its use mandatory for departments, constitutional institutions and public entities listed in Schedules 2 and 3 of the Public Finance Management Act. Those institutions must publish open competitive bids together with the complete set of bid documents, amendments to advertised bids, cancellations, and notifications of final awards. Bids are advertised for at least 21 days, per Treasury Regulation 16A6.3(c), except in urgent cases. Institutions must also capture the list of bidders within 10 working days of the closing date, award information within 10 working days of the successful bidder accepting the award, and any amendment at least 10 working days before closing.

What the portal need not carry matters just as much. Publication is not compulsory for price quotations or for procurement by deviation. Under PFMA SCM Instruction No. 02 of 2021/22, requirements up to R1 million (all taxes included) are procured by written quotations invited from suppliers already registered on the CSD — at least three — and only above R1 million must an open competitive bid be advertised. A large share of routine public spend therefore never appears as a tender notice at all. Municipalities and state-owned entities are the second gap: the instruction binds PFMA institutions, and National Treasury states on its transparency portal that "there is no obligation on municipal governments and state owned entities to share procurement data with National Treasury". Municipal opportunities continue to appear in the Government Tender Bulletin, in local media and on municipal websites. Treat eTenders as the largest feed, not a complete record.

Alongside the portal, National Treasury publishes procurement data in the Open Contracting Data Standard at data.etenders.gov.za: bulk downloads and a release API covering planning, tendering, award and contracting from 1 April 2022. The portal itself carries quarterly procurement plans and lets you browse awarded, cancelled and closed tenders as well as current ones.

The portal is not the supplier register — the CSD is

A common and expensive confusion: eTenders does not maintain the Central Supplier Database. The CSD is a separate National Treasury system, at secure.csd.gov.za, and has been the single source of supplier information for organs of state since 1 April 2016 (National Treasury SCM Instruction No. 4A of 2016/17). Registration is free and self-service, in two stages: create a user account, verified by one-time PIN and an activation email; then complete the supplier record — identification, industry classification, contacts, addresses, banking details, tax, directors and members, the commodities you supply and where you deliver them, B-BBEE, and accreditations such as cidb, SETA or SANAS. The CSD verifies what you submit against the South African Revenue Service, the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission, Home Affairs and your bank.

Registration is complete only when the supplier information is assigned a supplier number — the familiar MAAA reference — and a 36-digit unique registration reference number. That supplier number is what buyers use to look you up and what you quote on bid forms. Bank verification can take several days, so do it before a payment depends on it. And because tax status is verified against SARS on the CSD record rather than once at bid stage, a compliance lapse can stall an award you have already won. Check yourself against the Database of Restricted Suppliers and the Register for Tender Defaulters as well — the CSD site carries an "Am I Restricted?" tool — and, for construction work, hold the right cidb grade.

The law behind the portal in 2026

The Public Procurement Act 28 of 2024 was assented to on 18 July 2024 and published on 23 July 2024, and is widely written about as though it governs. It does not. National Treasury's statement of 13 August 2024 is unambiguous: "the provisions of the Act are not in force yet", the President must bring them into operation by proclamation, section 69 allows a phased commencement by category of procuring institution, and "the current procurement framework provided for under the Public Finance Management Act, 1999, the Municipal Finance Management Act, 2003, the PPPFA and other applicable legislation, remain in place" until that happens. Draft General Public Procurement Regulations, 2026 were published for comment in Government Gazette 54528 on 16 April 2026, the comment period was extended to 15 July 2026, and the draft as published still carries an unfilled commencement date.

What actually governs a bid advertised on eTenders today is the PFMA or the MFMA, the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act 5 of 2000 and the Preferential Procurement Regulations, 2022, in force since 16 January 2023. Those regulations apply an 80/20 preference point split for tenders with a rand value at or below R50 million and 90/10 above it, with each organ of state choosing the "specific goals" that earn the preference points on a given tender and stating them in the tender document. B-BBEE contributor level is no longer prescribed as the scoring axis, so read each tender's own stated goals instead of assuming. National Treasury restated the position in January 2024 when it amended its threshold instruction to direct that accounting officers "must apply the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, Act 5 of 2000 and its regulations".

See Otnox plans to track procurement opportunities across 80+ markets.