/contractsfinder/tenders/search

POST /api/contractsfinder/tenders/search

Price: 25 credits

Search Contracts Finder notices by keyword, notice kind, status, delivery region, postcode radius, CPV code, contract value and the publication, deadline, award and approach-to-market date windows. Each row carries the notice title and description, its buyer and awarded supplier, value range and awarded value, CPV codes, delivery location, SME and VCSE suitability and the notice URL.

How to use it

Rows come back by relevance and the register serves at most 1000 of them per call, so cut a broad question into published_from and published_to windows rather than raising count. Pass the row id to contractsfinder/tenders for the full notice with contacts, awards and attachments.

Parameters

• access-token string required

Request body

• timeout integer — Max scrapping execution timeout (in seconds) (default: 300; min: 20; max: 1500)
• count integer required — Max number of results (min: 1; max: 1000)
• query string nullable — Keyword matched on title, description, buyer and supplier (examples: "software")
• notice_type string nullable — Kind of notice (one of: "Contract", "Pipeline", "PreProcurement")
• status string nullable — Notice status (one of: "Open", "Closed", "Awarded")
• regions array nullable — Delivery regions, as named by the register (examples: ["Wales","South East"])
• postcode string nullable — Postcode the radius is measured from (examples: "SW1A 1AA")
• radius_miles number nullable — Radius around the postcode, in miles (examples: 10; max: 500; >: 0)
• cpv_codes array nullable — CPV codes of the procurement subject (examples: ["48000000"])
• value_from number nullable — Lowest contract value, in GBP (min: 0)
• value_to number nullable — Highest contract value, in GBP (min: 0)
• published_from string nullable — Earliest publication date (examples: "2026-09-01")
• published_to string nullable — Latest publication date (examples: "2026-09-21")
• deadline_from string nullable — Earliest submission deadline
• deadline_to string nullable — Latest submission deadline
• awarded_from string nullable — Earliest award date
• awarded_to string nullable — Latest award date
• approach_market_from string nullable — Earliest approach to market date
• approach_market_to string nullable — Latest approach to market date
• is_sme_suitable boolean nullable — Only notices marked suitable for SMEs; the register does not support excluding them (one of: true)
• is_vcse_suitable boolean nullable — Only notices marked suitable for voluntary, community and social enterprises; the register does not support excluding them (one of: true)
• is_supplier_sme boolean nullable — Only notices awarded to an SME; the register does not support excluding them (one of: true)
• is_supplier_vcse boolean nullable — Only notices awarded to a voluntary, community or social enterprise; the register does not support excluding them (one of: true)
• is_subcontract boolean nullable — True for subcontract notices only, false for everything else

Response

• @type string (default: "ContractsfinderNoticeSummary")
• id string required
• parent_id string nullable
• notice_identifier string nullable
• description string nullable
• notice_type string nullable
• status string nullable
• stage string nullable
• is_sub_notice boolean nullable
• buyer object nullable
  • @type string (default: "ContractsfinderPartyRef")
  • id string nullable
  • name string nullable
• suppliers array (default: [])
  • @type string (default: "ContractsfinderPartyRef")
  • id string nullable
  • name string nullable
• value object nullable
  • @type string (default: "ContractsfinderValue")
  • amount number nullable
  • amount_min number nullable
  • amount_max number nullable
  • currency string nullable
• awarded_value object nullable
  • @type string (default: "ContractsfinderValue")
  • amount number nullable
  • amount_min number nullable
  • amount_max number nullable
  • currency string nullable
• dates object nullable
  • @type string (default: "ContractsfinderSummaryDates")
  • published_at integer nullable
  • deadline_at integer nullable
  • awarded_at integer nullable
  • approach_market_at integer nullable
  • contract_start_at integer nullable
  • contract_end_at integer nullable
  • last_update_at integer nullable
• cpv array (default: [])
• cpv_extended array (default: [])
• cpv_description string nullable
• cpv_description_expanded string nullable
• sector string nullable
• location object nullable
  • @type string (default: "ContractsfinderLocation")
  • postcode string nullable
  • region string nullable
  • region_text string nullable
  • latitude number nullable
  • longitude number nullable
  • is_nationwide boolean nullable
• is_sme_suitable boolean nullable
• is_vcse_suitable boolean nullable
• is_supplier_sme boolean nullable
• is_supplier_vcse boolean nullable
• relevance_score number nullable
• country string (default: "GB")
• url string required

Errors

• 422 — Contracts Finder rejected the search criteria Check the fields against this schema. A URN with the wrong prefix is the most common cause.
• 408 — The request ran past its time limit Raise `timeout` in the request body, up to the maximum this endpoint documents. Lowering `count` or turning off the `with_*` flags also helps, because less work finishes sooner.
• 412 — The entity was not found, or a precondition failed Retrying will not help: either the entity does not exist, or the input points at a different one.
• 429 — Too many requests: a rate limit or a usage window is exhausted When the response carries an X-Retry-After header, wait that many seconds and retry: the same number is in the body as `detail.retry_after`, and the limit clears once that window passes. The message in the body names the limit that was hit.
• 500 — Something broke on our side Retrying will not help. If it keeps happening, send us the X-Request-ID from the response headers.
• 529 — Rate limit reached, or the endpoint is overloaded Wait at least 30 seconds, then retry.

Response headers

• X-Error — Error message text (present only on error)
• X-Request-ID — Unique request identifier
• X-Execution-Time — Execution time in seconds
• X-Result-Count — How many records the body carries. 0 means an empty result, which is a normal answer and not by itself an error. A non-zero count can come back together with X-Error when the failure happened partway through — read this header and X-Error independently.
• X-Total-Available-Results — How many records exist for this query, when the endpoint can say. On a `dry_run` request this is the answer and the body is empty. It saturates: the endpoint's documented maximum means 'at least that many', any smaller number is exact.
• X-Warning — Present when the request body carried keys this endpoint does not document. They were ignored, so any filter you meant to apply through them did not apply. Check the spelling against this schema and retry.
• X-Retry-After — Seconds to wait before retrying. Present only on 429.