Norway is an EEA member and applies the EU public procurement directives (2014/24/EU, 2014/25/EU, 2014/23/EU) through its national Public Procurement Act and regulations. There is no standing national supplier/vendor registry a company must join in advance; instead, contracting authorities publish tenders on the national notification database Doffin (and, above EEA thresholds, forward them to the EU's TED / Official Journal), and suppliers qualify on a per-tender basis. Qualification and self-declaration of eligibility is handled per procurement using the European Single Procurement Document (ESPD). Companies from EEA countries have equal-treatment access; suppliers from WTO GPA signatory states and countries with relevant agreements may also participate.
Doffin (Database for offentlige innkjøp / Norwegian national notification database for public procurement)
Norwegian Agency for Public and Financial Management (DFO / DFO - Direktoratet for forvaltning og okonomistyring)
Foreign companies eligibleNo local entity required to bid
No local establishment or local subsidiary is required to bid, under EEA equal-treatment principles. Practical requirements (e.g. VAT/tax registration, or a Norwegian organisation number via the Central Coordinating Register / Bronnoysund Register Centre) may arise at the contract-award or performance stage depending on the tender and the value of the contract, but this was not verified against a single authoritative source and should be checked per tender.
Confirm your company qualifies to bid. As an EEA member, Norway grants equal treatment to suppliers from EEA (EU + Iceland/Liechtenstein/Norway) states. Suppliers from WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) signatory states (e.g. US, Canada, Japan, South Korea) and countries with relevant agreements may bid on covered contracts. No advance approval or vendor pre-registration is required to be eligible.
Search and monitor tender opportunities on Doffin, Norway's mandatory national notification database operated by DFO. Norwegian public bodies must publish notices on Doffin above the national threshold; contracts above the EEA thresholds are also forwarded to the EU's Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) / Official Journal of the European Union. Suppliers can create a free account on Doffin to search notices and subscribe to alerts. Registering is for finding notices, not a qualification registry.
Each Doffin notice links to the contracting authority's e-procurement/tendering system (commonly Mercell/TendSign or similar), where the full tender documents are available and bids are submitted electronically. Register/create a supplier account in that system as directed by the specific notice to download documents and submit a bid. This is per-tender, not a single national registration.
For most above-threshold procurements, submit a European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) - a self-declaration that you meet the qualification/exclusion criteria (e.g. tax compliance, no criminal convictions, financial and technical capacity). Only the winning tenderer must later provide the actual supporting documents/certificates. The ESPD is completed per tender; since May 2019 the EU central ESPD service was discontinued and national/portal ESPD services (e.g. the Mercell ESPD service used in Norway) are used.
Prepare your offer per the tender documents and submit it electronically through the authority's e-tendering system by the stated deadline. Contract award follows the Public Procurement Act's fundamental principles (competition, equal treatment, predictability, transparency, proportionality). Complaints/reviews may be brought to KOFA (the Norwegian Complaints Board for Public Procurement) or the courts.
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Create free accountNo cost to register/monitor on Doffin (free national notification database). Costs are limited to bid preparation; there is no mandatory registration fee to become an eligible supplier.
Varies per tender — not a fixed registration time.
Lov om offentlige anskaffelser (Anskaffelsesloven), LOV-2016-06-17-73, and the Public Procurement Regulation (Anskaffelsesforskriften), in force 1 January 2017, implementing EU Directives 2014/24/EU, 2014/25/EU and 2014/23/EU into Norwegian law under the EEA Agreement. See regjeringen.no and anskaffelser.no (DFO).
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This guide is grounded in official sources, last verified 2026-07-20.