How Indian companies can bid for UK government contracts under the…

The agreement in one table


In force	15 July 2026. Procurements started before that date aren’t covered
Your status	“Treaty state supplier” under the Procurement Act 2023, for covered procurements
Central government thresholds	SDR 130,000 goods and services (£135,018 incl. VAT); SDR 5m works (£5,193,000)
Airports and ports	SDR 400,000 goods and services; SDR 5m works
Covered buyers	Central government, NHS England and trusts, devolved governments and health boards, Northern Ireland departments, airports and ports
Not covered	Councils, police, fire, universities, housing associations; the MoD and Home Office; water, energy and rail utilities
Services	25 listed categories only; construction fully covered
Notice flag	None: Find a Tender doesn’t mark CETA coverage

Which buyers are covered

Central government (Section A). The UK lists 48 entries, and sub-units without their own legal personality are included. Among them:

Departments: the Cabinet Office (including Crown Commercial Service, renamed the Government Commercial Agency on 1 April 2026), Business and Trade, Culture, Media and Sport (and the national museums), Education, Housing, Communities and Local Government, Energy Security and Net Zero, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Science, Innovation and Technology, Transport, Work and Pensions, the Foreign Office, HM Treasury, HMRC and the Ministry of Justice (with courts and tribunals).
Others: the ONS, the Royal Mint, UK Export Finance, the National Archives, the National Audit Office and Parliament.
Health: the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, the NHS Business Services Authority, and NHS trusts and foundation trusts in England.
Devolved governments: the Scottish Ministers (with NHS Scotland health boards, the Scottish courts, NatureScot and Historic Environment Scotland), the Welsh Ministers (with Welsh NHS trusts and local health boards), and the Northern Ireland departments (with the Housing Executive, further education colleges and the Fire and Rescue Service).

Not on the list: the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office. UK Space Agency procurement is expressly excluded. Integrated care boards and NHS Supply Chain aren’t named either, and whether they count as part of a listed body isn’t settled.

Sub-central government (Section B): none. No councils, combined authorities, police or fire authorities (other than Northern Ireland’s fire service), universities or housing associations.

Utilities (Section C): airports and ports only, including Highlands and Islands Airports, London Luton, Manchester Airports Group, Cornwall Airport and harbour authorities. Water, energy, rail and urban transport aren’t covered. A central body buying for drinking water, energy, transport or postal activities isn’t covered either.

What’s covered

Goods: everything bought by covered bodies.
Construction: all of CPC Division 51, at SDR 5m. Works concessions of SDR 5m or more by central bodies get the non-discrimination rule only.
Services: 25 listed categories only. They include maintenance and repair, telecoms, IT services, financial and insurance services, legal (with exceptions), accounting, management consulting, architecture and engineering, advertising, cleaning and property management, education, and sewage and environmental services.
Higher thresholds apply to hotel, catering, legal, government administrative, education, and recreational and cultural services: £663,540 for central bodies and £884,720 for airports and ports.

Excluded:

Human health services, administrative health services, and medical and nursing staffing. NHS purchases of goods and other listed services are still covered, so an Indian medical-device or IT supplier can benefit; an Indian staffing agency can’t.
Research and development (not on the list).
Court and arbitration representation, notarial work, and fiscal agency and public-debt services.
Defence and security.
Agricultural support and food aid, broadcast programme material, land, grants, employment contracts, and aid-funded procurement.

Your rights as a treaty state supplier

On a covered procurement, the Procurement Act gives an Indian supplier the same position as a UK supplier, and the agreement adds:

No UK-experience test. Buyers can’t require prior UK contracts or UK experience, and must assess experience gained outside the UK (Art. 15.8).
No offsets. Buyers can’t impose local-content, technology-transfer or investment conditions (Art. 15.4.7).
Normal origin rules. Rules of origin must be the ordinary ones used in trade (Art. 15.4.6).
Fair social value. Social value can be scored, but on objectively verifiable criteria, without disadvantaging Indian suppliers, and any self-certification route must also be open to them (Art. 15.4.10–11). This is a first in a UK trade agreement.
Your UK subsidiary is protected too. A UK-established company can’t be treated worse for being Indian-owned (Art. 15.4.2).

The one carve-out: Indian suppliers can’t use the review procedures to challenge an award to a UK SME. This lasts until the UK accepts that India has ended its domestic small and minority business preferences.

Challenging a decision

For covered procurements, Indian suppliers can bring a claim in the UK courts (Procurement Act, Part 9):

30 days from when you knew, or ought to have known, of the breach.
Set-aside claims: 30 days, or 6 months from the contract if no contract details notice was published.
Automatic suspension: issuing a claim during the standstill period and notifying the buyer stops the contract being signed.
Remedies: setting aside decisions or the contract, shortening the contract, or damages. You must show loss or risk of loss.

For non-covered procurements there’s no civil claim. You can complain to the buyer or the Cabinet Office’s Procurement Review Unit. In Scotland, claims run under the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Scotland: the Procurement Act doesn’t apply to devolved Scottish bodies, so Scotland amended its own regulations (SSI 2026/104, in force 24 March 2026). Indian suppliers get equal treatment and can bring legal action on the same basis as Scottish suppliers. The Scottish Government and NHS Scotland boards are covered; councils aren’t. Tenders appear on Public Contracts Scotland.
Wales: Welsh regulations (WSI 2026/97, in force 31 March 2026) apply the agreement to devolved Welsh bodies. The Welsh Government and Welsh NHS are covered; councils aren’t. Tenders also appear on Sell2Wales.
Northern Ireland: the NI departments are covered under the UK schedule.

How to tell if a tender is covered

Find a Tender’s covered-agreements field currently shows only GPA and CPTPP. A sample of 1,500 notices published between August and October 2026 had none mentioning India. So check four things yourself:

The buyer is a central government body, an NHS England trust, a devolved government body or health board, or an airport or port authority.
The value is at or above the threshold. UK thresholds include VAT, and the whole-life value counts.
The subject is goods, works, or one of the 25 listed services, and isn’t excluded.
The procurement started on or after 15 July 2026.

A GPA flag on a central government notice is a reasonable first filter, because the central thresholds match. Don’t rely on it for councils: the GPA covers them and the UK–India agreement doesn’t.

Practical steps

Register on the Central Digital Platform. Registration is free, non-UK addresses are fine, and you get a share code to use in tenders. See how to bid for UK government contracts.
Set up searches on Find a Tender for covered buyers, plus Public Contracts Scotland and Sell2Wales.
Target frameworks. Much central buying goes through Government Commercial Agency frameworks. G-Cloud 15 went live on 6 August 2026 and is expected to reopen to new suppliers around February 2028. See how to get onto UK public sector frameworks.
Prepare for the UK rules: Cyber Essentials for many central and NHS contracts, social value questions (usually at least 10% of the score), and prompt-payment obligations down your supply chain.
Consider a UK subsidiary. It’s a UK supplier with full rights on every contract, including below-threshold and council tenders that the agreement doesn’t reach, and the SME carve-out doesn’t apply to it.
Below the threshold, the Procurement Act lets buyers reserve contracts to UK suppliers, so a UK presence matters most for smaller contracts.

The reverse direction

UK companies get access to Indian central government tenders above ₹5.5 crore for goods and services and ₹60 crore for works, with Class-II local supplier status under Make in India when UK value-add is at least 20%. See how UK companies can bid for Indian government tenders.

What changed in 2025–2026

24 July 2025: the agreement was signed.
March 2026: Scottish (24 March), UK (30 March) and Welsh (31 March) implementing regulations came into force.
1 April 2026: Crown Commercial Service became the Government Commercial Agency.
13 July 2026: the treaty state supplier guidance was updated.
15 July 2026: the agreement entered into force.
6 August 2026: G-Cloud 15 went live.

Live UK tenders

Questions

Can Indian companies bid for UK government contracts?

Yes. Any company can bid under the Procurement Act 2023, but since the UK–India CETA came into force on 15 July 2026, Indian suppliers are ‘treaty state suppliers’ for covered procurements: they must be treated no less favourably than UK suppliers and can bring legal challenges in the UK courts. Procurements that started before 15 July 2026 aren’t covered.

Which UK buyers does the UK–India agreement cover?

Central government departments and their agencies (including Crown Commercial Service, now the Government Commercial Agency), NHS England, NHS trusts and foundation trusts, the Scottish and Welsh governments and their health boards, Northern Ireland departments, and airports and ports. Local councils, police and fire authorities, universities, the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office are not covered.

What are the thresholds for Indian suppliers in UK tenders?

SDR 130,000 for goods and services bought by central government (£135,018 including VAT in 2026–27) and SDR 5 million for works (£5,193,000). Airports and ports have a higher goods and services threshold of SDR 400,000. Hotel, catering, legal, education and some other services have their own higher thresholds.

Does Find a Tender show whether a notice is covered by the UK–India agreement?

No. Find a Tender’s covered-agreements field currently shows only the WTO GPA and CPTPP. Indian bidders must check coverage themselves: a listed central or devolved body, a value at or above the threshold, and goods or a listed service. A GPA flag on a central government notice is a useful first filter because the thresholds match.

Can an Indian company challenge a UK contract award?

Yes, for covered procurements. Treaty state suppliers can sue for breach of the Procurement Act within 30 days of when they knew or ought to have known of the breach; a claim issued during the standstill period automatically stops the contract being signed. One exception: Indian suppliers can’t challenge awards made to UK SMEs.

Does a UK subsidiary of an Indian company need the agreement?

No. A company established in the UK is a UK supplier under the Procurement Act, with full rights on every contract, including below-threshold and non-covered ones. The agreement also stops UK buyers treating it worse because it’s Indian-owned.

Sources

This guide explains the rules in plain English; it isn’t legal advice. Procurement rules change, and each tender document sets its own conditions — it always prevails.