What 2,209 open tenders say about selling to government
Every open tender on eTenders on 12 October 2026, read by our pipeline. Where the work is, who publishes it and how little time bidders get.
On 12 October 2026 our tender pipeline read every open opportunity on National Treasury’s eTenders portal. There were 2,209 open tenders from 404 public buyers. This is what that snapshot shows.
Most tenders close within two weeks
Of the 2,209 open tenders, 693 (31%) closed within seven days of the snapshot and 1,256 (57%) within fourteen. Fewer than one in ten had more than a month left.
The typical tender is open for about four weeks from publication to closing (28 days at the median). Requests for quotation move much faster. The median RFQ was open for just 13 days, and 265 of the 441 open RFQs closed within a week.
Because tenders close this quickly, the list turns over fast. More than half of everything open on 12 October (1,203 tenders) had been published in the previous two weeks. A supplier who checks the portal once a week will miss a large share of quotations completely.
A few buyers publish a lot
Eskom alone had 225 open tenders, one in every ten. The ten busiest buyers, among them Transnet, SANRAL, the Transnet National Ports Authority, the City of Tshwane and Airports Company South Africa, accounted for 657 (30%). At the other end, 122 buyers had a single tender open.
Where the work is
| Province | Open tenders | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Gauteng | 453 | 20.5% |
| Western Cape | 390 | 17.7% |
| KwaZulu-Natal | 315 | 14.3% |
| Eastern Cape | 233 | 10.5% |
| National | 205 | 9.3% |
| Limpopo | 187 | 8.5% |
| Mpumalanga | 172 | 7.8% |
| North West | 100 | 4.5% |
| Free State | 92 | 4.2% |
| Northern Cape | 62 | 2.8% |
Gauteng, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal together published more than half of all open tenders.
What kind of tenders
Open tenders (requests for bid) made up 64% of the list (1,418), requests for quotation 20% (441) and requests for proposal 13% (294). The remaining 56 were participation notices, requests for information, expressions of interest and a handful of limited, transversal and SITA contracts.
Read the requirements first
772 tenders (35%) had a compulsory briefing session, rising to 41% of open tenders. Missing a compulsory briefing usually rules a bidder out, so the briefing date matters as much as the closing date. Only 144 tenders (7%) accepted submission online through eTenders; for the rest, the tender documents say how and where to submit.
What this means if you bid
- Check every day, especially if quotations are a large part of your work.
- Search by what you sell and where, not by category alone. eTenders categories are broad, and similar work is filed under different names.
- Put briefing dates in the calendar the day a tender appears.
Pounce Tenders runs this check every day. The search over every open tender is free.
Method: eTenders open-tender listing, read on 12 October 2026 at 10:36 South African time. Counts are of tenders open at that moment. Closing windows are calculated from each record’s published and closing dates.
