CPV Code

On the procurement marketplace, all notices are recorded according to the so-called CPV (Common Procurement Vocabulary). The CPV is a Europe-wide standard for the classification of public contracts. Contracting authorities use it in notices to describe what the subject matter of the contract is in a language-independent manner.

The fact that everything on the procurement marketplace is recorded according to the CPV is something that companies can take advantage of in their searches. They are no longer limited to using search terms (e.g. search term “construction work”), but can search specifically for contracts in a specific subject or service area by entering the appropriate CPV code.

CPV Code

Order objects or services are assigned a unique block of digits by the CPV. “Construction work”, for example, is assigned the CPV code “450000-7”.

If the appropriate CPV code is known, it is possible to search for orders in the area of “construction work”, for example, by entering the corresponding CPV code instead of the word itself.

The CPV code is numeric, comprises eight digits and is divided into

• so called divisions, designated by the first two digits of the code (XX0000-Y),
• so-called groups designated by the first three digits of the code (XXX00000-Y),
• so called classes designated by the first four digits of the code (XXXX0000-Y),
• so-called categories designated by the first five digits of the code (XXXXX000-Y).

A ninth digit is used to verify the previous digit.

CPV catalog

Which CPV codes exist and what which code stands for (or vice versa) can be traced via the so-called CPV code selection. The CPV code selector appears in several places in the procurement marketplace, such as when creating and managing search profiles.

By its very structure, the CPV is represented as a system of categories and subcategories. Contract items or services that belong together or have a certain “related” relationship are logically grouped or subdivided in this system. For example, “construction completion” is a fixed subcategory of the category “construction work,” etc.

Top categories can be clicked in the CPV code selection to display the subcategories below them.

The deeper into the subcategories of the CPV code selection, the more precisely the subject of the contract or the respective service is described.

If the desired CPV code cannot be determined by means of “Navigation” , a category search can be used to find the desired CPV code. This category search can be used to search for specific terms, e.g. “waste water”.

Recommendation for announcement search

When searching for suitable calls for tenders, it is important to know that contracting authorities are obliged to specify the requirement specifications in calls for tenders “sufficiently” precisely. The contracting authority has some leeway in this regard, and it is sometimes the case that a rather general description of the subject matter of the contract in the form of the CPV is used instead of maximum precision. Companies should therefore not make too specific search specifications when searching with CPV codes, but set more general CPV codes as search parameters. In this way, tenders relevant to the company will not be excluded from the search results (all available CPV codes above the selected CPV code will be excluded from the procurement marketplace search function).

Important: Let’s assume that a company is interested in orders from the area “Installation of door thresholds” (CPV code 45421120-1). Because this CPV code itself does not contain any subordinate CPV codes, this means that the search criteria or requirement specifications are maximally accurate.

However, if the contracting authority has chosen to specify a CPV above it in the hierarchy of the tree structure, such as the higher-level category “Installation of doors and windows and accessories” (4521100-5), the RFP would be excluded from the search result of the search for CPV code 45421120-1 because this is below CPV code 4521100-5 and is therefore not considered a hit.

The downside of selecting a category that is too general (e.g. “construction work”), on the other hand, is that hits that are not of interest also appear in the search result.
To remedy this, several CPV codes can be selected and combined with each other. This increases the chance of having covered all desired categories or subcategories.