Live tender data · Date-stamped

Ontario government tenders, all in one place

A live feed of open federal tenders you could deliver in Ontario, plus the honest map of where provincial, broader-public-sector and municipal contracts actually get posted, what each one costs to reach, and how the new Buy Ontario rules change who wins.

Provincial routing verified against Supply Ontario and ontario.ca, July 2026. Live tender data below is licensed under the Open Government Licence, Canada. Jump to the routing map.

544Open tenders deliverable in Ontario
207Closing within 14 days
36Indigenous set-asides
$226KMedian federal award, Ontario delivery
Open right now

Open tenders you could bid on from Ontario

These are open federal opportunities whose region of delivery includes Ontario, pulled live from CanadaBuys and refreshed every day. They are only a sample of what is open. Use the browser to see and filter every one.

Open tenders deliverable in Ontario

As of Jul 20, 2026 · CanadaBuys open data
Showing a sample of the tenders open right now with delivery in Ontario. Browse and filter all of them →

"Deliverable in Ontario" means the buyer named Ontario as a region where the work can be performed. That includes opportunities marked for delivery anywhere in Canada, which an Ontario business can bid on just as easily. It is not a filter on which department is buying, and it is not the same as the provincial procurement covered further down this page. For the full picture, read how to find government contracts across Canada, or the plain-English guide to selling to government.

The routing map

Where Ontario tenders actually live

There is no single website that lists every Ontario government contract. Public buying in Ontario sits in three separate layers, and each one publishes somewhere different. Work out which layer your buyer is in, then go straight to its home.

Layer one, the province itself. Ontario ministries and provincial agencies post their open competitions on the Ontario Tenders Portal, run on the Jaggaer platform. The portal sits under Supply Ontario, the province's centralized supply-chain agency, but Supply Ontario is the policy and Vendor of Record layer, not the site you bid on. Do not confuse the Ontario Tenders Portal with the separate Ontario Vendor Portal, which is a back-office tool for invoicing once you already have a ministry relationship.

Layer two, the broader public sector. Hospitals, universities, colleges, school boards and other publicly funded bodies each choose their own electronic tendering system, as long as it is open and accessible to Canadian suppliers. In practice that scatters them across MERX, bids and tenders, and Biddingo rather than one provincial site. Because there are hundreds of these buyers, each running smaller competitions, the broader public sector is often the more realistic entry point for a small Ontario vendor.

Layer three, cities. Municipalities each run their own portal, and no two big cities picked the same vendor. See the city directory below.

Layer four, federal buyers based in Ontario. Ottawa and the National Capital Region hold a large share of federal headquarters, so an Ontario business, and especially an Eastern Ontario one, sits close to federal buyers too. Those opportunities are on CanadaBuys, and they are the ones surfaced in the live feed at the top of this page. For the full national portal map, see our directory of every Canadian tender portal.

You want to sell toLook hereWhat it costs to reach
Ontario ministries and provincial agencies Ontario Tenders Portal (Jaggaer), governed by Supply Ontario Free to register, view, download and bid
Hospitals, universities, colleges, school boards Scattered across MERX, bids and tenders, and Biddingo, each buyer picks its own Browsing is usually free, some aggregators charge for alerts or bidding
Ontario cities and municipalities Each city runs its own portal (see the directory below) Varies by city, browsing is generally free
Federal departments, work delivered in Ontario CanadaBuys, or the live feed at the top of this page Free to browse and bid
Award intelligence

Who buys, and how much

One useful way to plan is to look at which federal buyers award the most contracts for work delivered in Ontario. A shortlist of departments tends to account for most of the activity, which tells you where a small business gets the best return on the effort of registering and building relationships.

Top federal buyers for Ontario-delivered work

Ranked by number of contract awards on record. Award data is published unaudited and lags the calendar by months, so read it as a guide to who buys, not a live scoreboard.

  • Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC)4,391 awards
  • Department of National Defence (DND)414 awards
  • National Research Council Canada (NRC)203 awards
  • Correctional Service of Canada (CSC)55 awards
  • Royal Canadian Mounted Police41 awards

Award data window: Feb 15, 1996 → Jul 18, 2026 · CanadaBuys award notices (published unaudited, lags months)

Concentration is the story here. When a handful of buyers account for the bulk of the awards, the practical move is to learn those buyers deeply, get on their bidders lists and standing arrangements, and mirror the language of their solicitations, rather than spreading yourself thin across every department at once. When you are ready to respond, our guide to writing a winning government bid walks through how evaluators actually score.

The rules that decide who wins

Buy Ontario, and how to get on a Vendor of Record list

Ontario's procurement rules changed dramatically and recently. The Buy Ontario Procurement Directive took effect on April 13, 2026 and folded the older Building Ontario Businesses Initiative and the Restrictive Procurement Policy into one framework. Any guide still quoting a standalone BOBIA threshold is describing a superseded rule.

The underlying Buy Ontario Act received royal assent on December 11, 2025, and a companion Municipal Buy Ontario Procurement Directive took effect the same day as the provincial one, with some municipal requirements phasing in through the spring. The core idea for a bidder is simple: the directive sets preference tiers by the value of the buy, favouring local suppliers on smaller contracts and widening the field as the value rises.

Buy Ontario is a preference, not usually a wall. For most Canadian bidders these tiers decide how much of an edge home-grown suppliers get, not whether you can bid at all. The one firm exclusion is for U.S. businesses, which covered entities must exclude from procurements, except where a U.S. business is the only viable source, or, for a service contract, commits to 90 percent Canadian staffing.
Buyer typeProcurement valuePreference goes to
Government entitiesBelow $34,700 goods, below $139,000 servicesOntario businesses
Government entities$34,700 to $368,000 goods, $139,000 to $368,000 servicesCanadian businesses
Government entities$368,000 and aboveTrading-partner businesses, with weighted domestic criteria
Broader public sectorBelow $139,000Ontario businesses
Broader public sector$139,000 to $368,000Canadian businesses
Broader public sector$368,000 and aboveTrading-partner businesses, with weighted domestic criteria
Any covered entity$50 million and aboveMust include an Industrial, Regional and Technology Benefit requirement

Separately, the Broader Public Sector Procurement Directive requires hospitals, colleges, school boards and other designated bodies to run an open, fair and transparent process, and to compete openly at or above $139,000 through an electronic tendering system that all Canadian suppliers can reach. That $139,000 line matches the current interprovincial trade-agreement threshold, which is why the same number keeps appearing.

Getting onto a Vendor of Record arrangement

A Vendor of Record, or VOR, is the province's main mechanism for repeat, simplified access. It is a master agreement that lets ministries, and often hospitals, municipalities and school boards, buy from a pre-qualified list without a fresh competition each time. You do not apply for one, you win it.

  1. Watch the Three-Year Outlook

    Supply Ontario publishes a Three-Year Outlook naming upcoming enterprise-wide, multi-ministry and ministry-specific VOR opportunities, with their category and expected posting date, so you can prepare in advance.

  2. Register free and set alerts

    Register on the Ontario Tenders Portal at no cost and turn on email alerts for the categories you serve, so you see the Request for Bids the day it posts.

  3. Respond to the Request for Bids

    VOR arrangements are established through Requests for Bids run as a transparent competitive process. Meet every stated requirement, because a VOR is competed, not granted.

  4. Sign the master agreement

    Bidders who meet all the requirements and sign the master agreement with the government become Vendors of Record, pre-qualified for streamlined future purchases.

  5. File your monthly usage reports

    Once listed, Vendors of Record log in to submit monthly usage reports through the designated government portal. It is an ongoing obligation, not a one-time step.

    Most existing Vendor of Record arrangements are grandfathered under the new directive, though the new fleet-vehicle requirements apply even through existing arrangements.

An Indigenous-owned business has extra routes. Ontario's Indigenous Procurement Program uses set-asides open only to Indigenous businesses, participation requirements built into tenders, and evaluation criteria that reward Indigenous partnership. Eligibility turns on at least 51 percent Indigenous ownership and control. Access is free, through the Ontario Tenders Portal and Indigenous-specific Vendor of Record arrangements. Our small-business procurement guide covers set-asides in more depth.
City by city

Where the big Ontario cities post

Each large Ontario city picked its own procurement platform, so there is no single municipal feed to bookmark. Here is where the biggest ones post, confirmed against each city's own procurement page.

CityWhere tenders are postedGo to
Toronto TO Bids portal, with bidding run on SAP Business Network (Ariba) toronto.ca
Ottawa MERX, with lower-value and construction work sometimes elsewhere ottawa.ca
Mississauga bids and tenders mississauga.bidsandtenders.ca
Hamilton bids and tenders hamilton.bidsandtenders.ca

Most other mid-size and large Ontario cities, such as London and Kitchener, appear to run on the same bids and tenders platform, each on its own city subdomain, and Windsor is often listed on Biddingo, though we have not confirmed those three against the cities' own pages, so check the city's procurement page before you rely on it. Mississauga has been reported as moving to a new platform during 2026, another reason to confirm at the source. The pattern to take away is that a vendor targeting several Ontario municipalities needs a separate account on each platform. There is no unified Ontario municipal tenders portal.

Common questions

Ontario tenders, answered

Where do I find Ontario government tenders?
It depends on who is buying. Ontario provincial ministries and agencies post their open competitions on the Ontario Tenders Portal, run on the Jaggaer platform and overseen by Supply Ontario. Federal departments buying work delivered in Ontario post on CanadaBuys. Broader public sector buyers such as hospitals, universities, colleges and school boards each pick their own system, so they are scattered across MERX, bids and tenders, and Biddingo. Municipalities each run their own portal. There is no single portal that carries all four.
Is the Ontario Tenders Portal free?
Yes. The Ontario Tenders Portal states that suppliers can register for free to receive email alerts and bid for opportunities tailored to their business. There is no registration fee, and vendors can view and download opportunities of interest without incurring a cost.
What is a Vendor of Record in Ontario?
A Vendor of Record, or VOR, is a pre-established master agreement the government signs with vendors after a competitive process. Once you hold one, ministries and many other publicly funded organizations can buy from a pre-qualified list without running a fresh competition every time. You get onto a VOR by winning a Request for Bids posted on the Ontario Tenders Portal and signing the master agreement.
What is the Buy Ontario Procurement Directive?
The Buy Ontario Procurement Directive took effect on April 13, 2026. It consolidates and replaces the earlier Building Ontario Businesses Initiative and the Restrictive Procurement Policy into a single framework. It sets preference tiers so that lower-value buys favour Ontario businesses, mid-value buys favour Canadian businesses, and only the highest tier opens to trading-partner businesses. Older references to a standalone BOBIA threshold now describe a superseded rule.
Do I have to be an Ontario business to win an Ontario government contract?
Not usually. The Buy Ontario Procurement Directive is mostly a preference, not an outright exclusion, for Canadian bidders. Lower-value procurements give preference to Ontario businesses, mid-value ones to Canadian businesses, and the highest tier considers businesses from Ontario's trading partners. The one hard exclusion is for U.S. businesses, which covered entities must exclude except where a U.S. business is the sole viable source, or, for service contracts, commits to 90 percent Canadian staffing.
Where do Ontario municipalities post tenders?
There is no single Ontario municipal portal. Toronto advertises through its TO Bids portal and runs the actual bidding on SAP Business Network. Ottawa uses MERX. Hamilton and Mississauga use the bids and tenders platform, each on its own city subdomain, and most other mid-size and large cities have standardized on bids and tenders too. A vendor targeting several Ontario cities usually needs a separate account on each platform.
How much does the Ontario government spend on procurement?
The province says it spends more than 30 billion dollars a year procuring goods and services. That is the whole-of-government figure across ministries, agencies and the broader public sector, and it is separate from Ontario's capital infrastructure plan, which is a different category of spending.

See every open tender you could bid on in Ontario

The live browser matches open federal tenders to your province and industry, and tells you why each one made the cut. Free, and no account needed.

Browse Ontario tenders → Free · no account needed
Fund the capacity to bid

Bidding takes capacity. Ontario grants can fund it.

Winning government work often means hiring, buying equipment, or building the systems a bigger contract demands. Ontario has grants for exactly that, and many stack. It is worth knowing which ones you qualify for before you scale up to chase tenders.

Start with our overviews of Ontario business grants, hiring and training grants, and manufacturing and equipment grants. Or take the two-minute quiz below and we will match you to the funding you actually qualify for.

Sources

Provincial and municipal facts on this page were verified against official sources on July 19, 2026. Live tender data comes from CanadaBuys open data (refreshed daily at the source); each data block on this page carries its own as-of stamp. Licensed under the Open Government Licence, Canada.

Buy Ontario Procurement Directive (ontario.ca) · Doing business with the government of Ontario (ontario.ca) · Supply Ontario mandate (ontario.ca) · Become a vendor (supplyontario.ca) · Registered vendors and VOR arrangements (supplyontario.ca) · Ontario Tenders Portal (Jaggaer) · Indigenous Procurement Program (ontario.ca) · Toronto Bids Portal · City of Ottawa bidding opportunities · City of Hamilton (bids and tenders)