qlows
qlows · field notesVol. 02

Guide · Switzerland

Switzerland tender platforms: how to bid on SIMAP

Switzerland isn't in the EU — but it's a WTO-GPA party, so its public market is open to foreign suppliers all the same. One official portal spans federal, cantonal, and municipal buyers.

Robin Dauer·Founder, qlows
JUL 4, 2026 · 5 min read

Switzerland is neither an EU nor an EEA member — but it is a party to the WTO Government Procurement Agreement, which means its public contracts are open to suppliers from other GPA parties above the relevant thresholds. It doesn’t publish to TED; instead it runs its own official portal.

01 · SIMAP: the official portal

SIMAP (simap.ch).The official Swiss information system for public procurement, shared across the Confederation (federal), the cantons, and municipalities. It’s the single place Swiss public buyers publish their tenders, and increasingly where documents are distributed and bids submitted.

Because Switzerland is a federal state with 26 cantons, thresholds and some procedural details vary between the federal level and the cantonal concordat — but SIMAP is the common discovery layer across all of them.

02 · GPA rights and languages

Who can bid. Above the GPA thresholds, suppliers from other GPA parties compete on equal terms with Swiss firms. Below them, access can be more limited — worth checking per tender.

Languages. Swiss tenders are published in the relevant national language — German, French, or Italian depending on the canton. That multilingual reality is exactly where an AI-native workflow helps: reading a tender in any of the three and returning a single structured English requirements plan. Registration on SIMAP is free.

Try qlows on a Swiss notice

Drop a Swiss tender into qlows and watch the Eignungs- and Zuschlagskriterien grid build itself.

Bring a live Swiss tender in German, French, or Italian — we'll structure the requirements in English.

Book a 30-min demo
03 · The qlows workflow on Swiss tenders
  1. Find the tender on SIMAP (or via qlows).
  2. Register and downloadthe Ausschreibungsunterlagen / dossier d’appel d’offres.
  3. Ingest into qlows. The bundle is decomposed into a compliance grid — eligibility and award criteria, weightings — in English, the German/French/Italian source preserved.
  4. Route open items to the right owners via a magic link each.
  5. Draft and submitbefore the deadline in the tender’s required form.

Start with live Swiss tenders by industry to find a real one to run through.

Free to start

Run qlows on a Swiss tender.

Drop the tender documents into qlows — we’ll ship the compliance grid from the German, French, or Italian source, in English.

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