How EU companies can bid for US federal and state government contracts

The rules in one table

Situation	What applies to EU products
Covered federal agency, at or above $174,000 (goods and services) or $6.683m (construction)	Treated as domestic (Trade Agreements Act)
Covered agency, below the threshold	Buy American: +20% (large domestic low bid) or +30% (small)
DoD, below the threshold, from a qualifying country	Buy American waived
DoD, below the threshold, not from a qualifying country	+50%
Berry Amendment items (DoD)	US-made only above the simplified acquisition threshold
Small-business set-asides	Not eligible
37 GPA states (listed agencies)	Covered, with carve-outs
Other states, cities, counties, transit authorities	Not covered

The Trade Agreements Act: above the threshold

Thresholds for 2026–27: $174,000 for supplies and services, and $6.683 million for construction (FAR 25.402).
Above the threshold, the Buy American Act is waived for “eligible products”: EU products get equal treatment with domestic offers.
The purchase restriction (FAR 25.403©): above the threshold, agencies may only buy US-made or designated-country end products, unless none are offered. That’s an advantage for EU suppliers over Chinese or Indian ones.
Schedule contracts: the GSA Multiple Award Schedule is open to foreign companies, and TAA compliance applies to all schedule products, whatever the order value.

Origin:

A product is an EU product if it’s wholly made in an EU country, or substantially transformed there into a new and different article.
US Customs and Border Protection issues binding origin rulings (19 CFR Part 177). Get one before bidding a product with a mixed supply chain.
Services take the origin of the country where the company is established, so an EU-established firm’s services count as EU services.

Buy American: below the threshold

Below the trade-agreement threshold, an EU product is a foreign end product, and the price is adjusted for evaluation:

civilian agencies add 20% if the lowest domestic offer comes from a large business, or 30% if from a small business (FAR 25.106);
the Department of Defense adds 50% (DFARS 225.106), unless the qualifying-country exemption applies.

Domestic content: to count as a domestic product, at least 65% of component cost must be US (2024–2028), rising to 75% from 2029. A 55% fallback applies until 1 January 2030. Construction materials have a 20% evaluation factor.

The Department of Defense

Qualifying countries have reciprocal defence procurement agreements with the US. Their products are exempt from the Buy American Act and the Balance of Payments Program even below the GPA threshold.

EU member status	Countries
Qualifying	Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden
Case by case	Austria
Not qualifying	Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Hungary, Ireland, Malta, Romania, Slovakia

DoD restrictions that still apply:

Berry Amendment: food, clothing, tents, natural fibres, and hand and measuring tools must be US-made above the simplified acquisition threshold. There’s no general qualifying-country exception.
Specialty metals: restricted, but with an exception for items made in a qualifying country or using metal melted there.
GPA exclusions at DoD: naval vessels, specialty metals, Berry items and a list of national-security product classes.

What’s excluded at federal level

The US GPA schedule covers 85 federal entities and their subordinate agencies. It excludes:

the FAA entirely;
USDA farm support and feeding programmes, NOAA shipbuilding, and Energy nuclear-safeguarding and Strategic Petroleum Reserve purchases;
USAID foreign-assistance procurement, and TSA textiles;
the Coast Guard, which is treated like DoD;
services: all transport services, management and operation of government facilities (including federally funded R&D centres), R&D services, basic telecoms, utilities and dredging;
set-asides: all small- and minority-business set-asides and price preferences.

States and federal utilities

37 states are covered, through listed agencies only (often just the central purchasing office):

covered states: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming;
12 of them exclude construction-grade steel, motor vehicles and coal: Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Wyoming;
no construction: Arkansas, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky and Oklahoma. Tennessee: goods only. Mississippi: no services. Montana: services only;
everywhere: Buy America rules on federally funded transit and highway projects are preserved, printing is excluded, and states keep preferences for distressed areas and for minority-, women- and disabled-veteran-owned businesses.

The other 13 states, and all cities, counties, school districts and transit authorities, aren’t covered.

Federal utilities:

$250,000 threshold: the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Bonneville, Western, Southeastern and Southwestern power administrations, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and Rural Utilities Service financing;
SDR 400,000 threshold: the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the Port of Baltimore and the New York Power Authority.

Practical steps

Register in SAM.gov and get a Unique Entity ID. Foreign companies also need an NCAGE code. See how to register in SAM.gov.
Find opportunities on SAM.gov, and check each notice’s trade-agreement clauses.
Confirm your products’ origin, and get a CBP ruling if the supply chain is mixed.
Target above-threshold contracts at covered agencies, the GSA schedule, and DoD if you’re in a qualifying country.
Subcontract into set-asides. You can’t prime them, but you can supply small-business primes.
Consider a US entity for services, security clearances and work near federally funded R&D centres.

See how to win federal contracts.

What changed in 2025–2026

20 January 2025: the America First Trade Policy memo told the US Trade Representative to review trade agreements, including the WTO GPA, and recommend changes. No outcome or change to the US GPA schedule has been published.
The Revolutionary FAR Overhaul: a rewritten FAR Part 25 was issued through agency deviations (September 2025, updated March 2026), and formal proposed rules for 17 FAR parts were published in June 2026. The Buy American and Trade Agreements Act rules are statutory and unchanged in substance.
2026 executive orders made fixed-price contracts the default (EO 14402, April 2026) and addressed contractor DEI practices (EO 14398, March 2026).
New thresholds for 2026–27; domestic content rises to 75% in 2029.
21 August 2025: the EU–US joint statement set a 15% tariff ceiling on most EU goods. Duties are part of the evaluated price, but tariffs don’t change eligibility.

For the reverse direction, see US companies bidding for EU public tenders.

Live US tenders

Questions

Can EU companies bid for US federal contracts?

Yes. All 27 EU member states are WTO GPA countries. At or above the trade-agreement thresholds ($174,000 for goods and services and $6.683 million for construction in 2026–27), EU products from covered agencies are treated like US products, and agencies may only buy US-made or designated-country products. Below the thresholds, the Buy American Act’s price penalties apply.

What is the Buy American price penalty for EU products?

Below the trade-agreement threshold, civilian agencies add 20% to a foreign offer’s price if the lowest domestic offer is from a large business, or 30% if it’s from a small business. The Department of Defense adds 50%, but waives the Buy American Act entirely for products from qualifying countries, including 18 EU members.

Which EU countries are DoD qualifying countries?

Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. Austria is handled case by case. Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Hungary, Ireland, Malta, Romania and Slovakia aren’t qualifying countries.

How is a product’s country of origin decided in US procurement?

A product is from an EU country if it’s wholly made there or ‘substantially transformed’ there into a new and different article. US Customs and Border Protection issues binding final determinations on origin, which are worth getting before bidding a product with a mixed supply chain. For services, origin is where the company is established.

Are US state government contracts open to EU companies?

Partly. Only listed agencies of 37 states are covered by the WTO GPA, often just the central purchasing office, with carve-outs such as construction-grade steel, motor vehicles and coal in 12 states, and Buy America rules on federally funded transit and highway projects preserved. The other 13 states and all cities, counties and transit authorities aren’t covered.

Can EU companies bid on US small-business set-asides?

No. Set-asides for small, minority-owned and other designated businesses are outside the GPA, and foreign companies aren’t eligible. EU firms can still work as subcontractors to small businesses.

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.