CPV codes are the classification buyers attach to a tender to say what they are buying, and they are the most reliable filter available because the buyer assigns them regardless of language or wording. To use them well, build a three-tier list: core codes that describe exactly what you sell, adjacent codes for work you can credibly take on, and one or two division-level codes as a wide safety net. Then test the list against live tenders and adjust it — a code list is a working filter, not a one-off setup task.
For the structure of the coding system itself — the eight digits, the hierarchy, the check digit — start with what a CPV code is or the shorter glossary definition. This article assumes you know that and covers what to actually do with it.
Why codes beat keywords
Keyword search fails in three predictable ways. Buyers describe the same requirement in different words. Notices are published in the buyer's language, so a search in English misses everything in Greek. And the interesting detail is usually in the documents rather than the title, which most keyword searches never read.
Codes sidestep all three because they are structured data assigned at publication. Coverage is high enough to rely on: around 97% of active tenders carry a CPV classification, according to the Tendly data snapshot. The remaining few per cent are the reason you keep a keyword alert as a supplement, not as your primary filter.
Building your list in three tiers
Tier 1 — core codes
Start from what you actually deliver and find the most specific codes that describe it. Be honest rather than aspirational: these should be the contracts where your references and certifications already fit. Most businesses have between three and fifteen core codes. If you have sixty, you have not finished thinking.
Tier 2 — adjacent codes
Now add the work you could credibly win but might not have thought to search for. An IT services firm sits under IT services codes, but relevant contracts also appear under software, office and computing equipment, and telecoms. A cleaning contractor appears under building cleaning, but also under facilities management and waste services. Adjacent codes are where most suppliers find opportunities they were previously blind to.
Tier 3 — division-level catch-alls
Add one or two two-digit divisions as a wide net — 45 for construction, 72 for IT services, 79 for business services, and so on. This tier will produce noise, and that is the point: it catches tenders a buyer classified under a code you would never have guessed. Keep it on a separate, lower-priority alert so it does not drown your core list.
Test the list before you trust it
A code list is a hypothesis. Test it against reality in three ways:
- Run it against currently open tenders. If a code returns nothing in your markets over a month, it is probably not how your buyers classify this work. The CPV finder helps translate what you sell into codes, and browsing tenders by category shows what each code is actually returning.
- Check it against contracts you already have. Look up the award notices for work you won and see which codes those tenders used. If a code is missing from your list, that is a direct gap.
- Check it against work you lost or never saw. When a competitor wins something you would have bid for, find the notice and read its classification.
A worked example
Take a mid-sized firm doing commercial electrical installation and maintenance. Their tier-one codes are the specific installation and maintenance codes for electrical work — that is the work they are unambiguously qualified for. Tier two adds building services and repair and maintenance codes, plus the energy efficiency and lighting codes that increasingly carry the same work under a different framing. Tier three is the construction division as a whole, on a low-priority weekly alert.
The tier-three net is what catches the refurbishment contract where electrical work is a major component but the buyer classified the whole project as building work. That tender never appears under a specific electrical code, and a supplier with only tier-one codes never learns it existed.
The four mistakes that make code filters useless
- Too narrow. Only full eight-digit codes, no adjacency, no division-level net. You see a fraction of your market and conclude there is not much work about.
- Too broad. Whole divisions with no value or geography filter. You get hundreds of notices, stop reading them, and miss the good ones inside your own alerts.
- Assuming buyers classify correctly. They frequently do not. Misclassification is the single best argument for the division-level tier.
- Setting it once. What you sell changes, and so do the codes buyers reach for. Review quarterly and after every win or loss that surprised you.
Combining codes with the filters that matter
Codes tell you what is being bought, not whether it is worth bidding for. Layer three more filters on top: value range, so you are not reading contracts ten times your delivery capacity; geography, since delivery location constrains most services; and deadline runway, because a tender closing in four days is a different decision from one closing in six weeks. More than a quarter of active tenders are closing within seven days — filtering on remaining time is not a nicety.
Two structural caveats on value. Fewer than half of active tenders publish an estimated value at all, so a strict value filter silently drops everything that did not disclose one. And among those that do, the Tendly data snapshot puts the median disclosed value at around €240,000 — so a filter set far above that is excluding most of the market, not just the small end. Treat value as a sorting aid rather than a hard cut.
From filter to shortlist
A good code list turns tens of thousands of tenders into a manageable stream. It does not tell you which of them you can win — that depends on your references, capacity, and the award criteria, which is where AI matching and a disciplined bid/no-bid process take over.
Build the list, put it behind an alert so new matches reach you automatically — alerts are covered here — and then see what is open in your categories right now.