CanadaBuys explained: how to find federal government tenders (2026)

If you want federal work — work for the Government of Canada — there's one front door, and it's CanadaBuys. It replaced the old Buyandsell.gc.ca system, and it's now the official place federal tender notices are published. Knowing how to register and search it properly is the difference between seeing federal opportunities and missing them entirely.

Here's the practical version.

What CanadaBuys is

CanadaBuys is the Government of Canada's official electronic tendering service, run by Public Services and Procurement Canada. It's the system of record for federal tender and award notices (and serves the broader Canadian public sector too). It became the system of record for tender notices open for bids on or after August 8, 2022, and it replaced Buyandsell.gc.ca, which was decommissioned in 2025 — old Buyandsell bookmarks no longer work, so update yours to CanadaBuys.

Searching it is free and open to anyone. You don't need an account to browse what's posted.

What gets posted there

CanadaBuys carries Government of Canada departments and agencies. As a rule of thumb, federal buyers must run an open competition once a requirement passes a fairly low dollar value — the figures most often cited are roughly $25,000 for goods and roughly $40,000 for services and construction (set by the Government Contracts Regulations). Larger contracts also fall under Canada's trade-agreement obligations, whose thresholds are higher. The exact numbers vary and change over time, so treat them as a guide and confirm the current values.

For construction specifically, federal notices carry a procurement category of "CNST" — that's your filter for building, civil, and renovation work.

How to register to bid

Browsing is free; to bid, you register an account:

• CanadaBuys runs on SAP Ariba, so you register a free SAP Business Network account.
• You can hold only one account per Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) business number — register once, at the company level, not per person.
• Work through the registration checklist before you start so you have your business details ready. Don't leave registration until a tender you want is closing — it takes time you won't have at the deadline.

How to find construction tenders

Once you can see the postings, narrow them down:

• Search by keyword, commodity code, or department. Commodity codes are how buyers classify what they're buying.
• Use UNSPSC codes. The Government of Canada is moving to UNSPSC (United Nations Standard Products and Services Codes), which is replacing the older GSIN (Goods and Services Identification Number) system. Some departments still use GSIN, and historical notices keep their GSIN codes, so a mapping tool exists to translate between the two — find the codes that describe your trade and search on them.
• Filter for the "CNST" construction category to cut goods-and-services noise.

Set up notifications — don't check manually

The contractors who do well on CanadaBuys don't refresh the site every morning. Set up keyword notifications so new tenders matching your trade and codes are pushed to you. Manual checking is how good-fit federal work slips past while you're on site.

What CanadaBuys doesn't cover

This is the part that catches contractors out: CanadaBuys is federal only. It carries nothing provincial or municipal. If your work is provincial buildings, city streets, or school renovations, CanadaBuys alone will show you almost nothing — you need your provincial and municipal portals too.

That's exactly the split we cover province by province:

• Alberta: APC vs MERX vs CanadaBuys
• Saskatchewan: SaskTenders vs MERX vs CanadaBuys
• British Columbia: BC Bid vs CivicInfo vs CanadaBuys

And if you're still untangling the document types you'll meet on CanadaBuys — RFSO, RFSA, ITT, RFP — our tender types guide explains what each one rewards.

One feed across federal, provincial, and municipal

Registering on CanadaBuys solves the federal piece. The harder problem is coverage: federal, provincial, and municipal work lives on different portals, and watching all of them is a daily job.

Cornerstone Contracts pulls postings from CanadaBuys and the provincial and municipal portals every day, then scores each one against your trade, service area, and typical project size — so you see the federal and local work that fits, in one ranked feed, without living in five tabs.

Browse what's open in Alberta, Saskatchewan, or British Columbia right now — free, no account. Then start free to see them scored to your profile, with a compliance-aware draft proposal for any tender you decide to pursue.

CanadaBuys features, codes, and thresholds change. Confirm current details on CanadaBuys before relying on them.