Buying for Victoria: How to Find and Win Victorian Government Tenders

Victoria publishes its government tenders in one central place: the Buying for Victoria Supplier Portal at tenders.vic.gov.au, which the state’s own guidance still describes as “formerly Tenders VIC”. The companion site, buyingfor.vic.gov.au, is where the rules, contract registers and supplier guidance live.

This guide covers how the two fit together, who buys through them, the policies that shape a Victorian tender, and how to put in a response that holds up. If you also sell interstate, our guides to buy NSW, Tenders WA and QTenders cover the other large state systems, and the AusTender guide covers Commonwealth work.

What is Buying for Victoria?

Buying for Victoria is the Victorian Government’s procurement website. It has two parts that suppliers use for different jobs:

• The Supplier Portal (tenders.vic.gov.au). Agencies advertise opportunities here: invitations to supply, expressions of interest and requests for tender, for goods, services and construction. Advance notices of construction works and services are published here as well, and so is contract information after award.
• The guidance site (buyingfor.vic.gov.au). Browse tenders, look up state purchase contracts and registers, read the construction supplier registers, and find the policies suppliers need to know.

There is also a newer Digital Marketplace, where government buys from businesses under some state purchase contracts, and a Supplier Hub, where businesses upload their details and connect with buyers.

One caution from the site itself: Buying for Victoria carries an alert about scammers impersonating government officials to target suppliers. If an “agency” contacts you about a tender, check that the opportunity is listed on the portal before you send anything.

Who buys through the portal

The Victorian Government Purchasing Board’s goods and services policies apply to departments and specified entities, including the agencies brought under the board’s policies from 1 July 2021. Those buyers advertise on the Supplier Portal.

Some public buyers use other systems:

• Health. Health services buy many goods and services through HealthShare Victoria, an independent statutory authority with its own procurement portal and tender listings. Where a HealthShare Victoria collective agreement covers a product, health services must use it.
• Education. The Department of Education, some Education portfolio bodies and the Victorian School Building Authority release requests for quote through a separate supplier portal.
• Councils. Local government runs its own procurement (see below).

If your market is hospitals or schools, register on those systems as well as the main portal.

How Victoria’s procurement rules work

Victoria runs two separate regimes, and a tender’s documents will tell you which one applies.

Goods and services. The Financial Management Act 1994 governs goods and services procurement, and the Victorian Government Purchasing Board, a body corporate established under that Act, sets the policies. There are five supply policies: governance, complexity and capability assessment, market analysis and review, market approach, and contract management and disclosure. They rest on four principles: value for money, accountability, probity and scalability. In practice, that means larger and riskier purchases get more rigorous market approaches, and the evaluation will look past price to whole-of-life value.

Construction. Public construction runs under the Project Development and Construction Management Act 1994 and the Ministerial Directions and Instructions for Public Construction Procurement, with the Department of Treasury and Finance responsible for the policy. Construction tenders follow their own documentation and prequalification rules.

Contract disclosure is a useful by-product of the goods and services policies. Agencies publish contract information on the portal after award, so you can see who won comparable work and when contracts are likely to end.

Registering and staying on top of new tenders

1. Register on the Supplier Portal. The list of current opportunities is open to everyone, but you need to log in to download documents and to submit an offer electronically.
2. Set up notifications for the goods and services categories you supply, so new opportunities reach your inbox. Start broad, then narrow once you see what comes through.
3. Read the annual procurement activity plans. Departments and agencies publish one each year on their own websites, and Buying for Victoria links to them. For construction, advance tender notices on the portal give early warning of upcoming works.
4. Watch contract information in your categories for the incumbents and end dates that tell you when work will come back to market.

Monitoring one state is manageable. Monitoring several, plus councils, is where a deliberate process helps; our guide to tender bidding covers how to choose which opportunities deserve a full response.

State purchase contracts, panels and registers

State purchase contracts are Victoria’s whole-of-government contracts, panels and registers. Departments buy common goods and services through them, so a place on the right one can be worth more than a run of individual tender wins.

Getting on works like this, according to Buying for Victoria:

• Register on the Supplier Portal first, then apply to a new or refreshing state purchase contract by following its tender process.
• Open contracts accept applications during their term. Closed contracts do not, so the refresh is your only way in.
• Refreshes start well before expiry. Watch the portal for the approach to market on contracts you want to join.
• Registers for goods and services, and for construction, are open at any time.

Construction: the Construction Supplier Register

For works and construction services, the key list is the Construction Supplier Register, a whole of Victorian government prequalification scheme administered by the Department of Treasury and Finance. It covers suppliers such as architects, engineers, project managers, builders and demolition contractors. Applying is a two-step process: an eligibility check, then the full application.

Other registers sit alongside it, including the VicRoads Pre-qualification Scheme for road and bridge work and the Development Victoria register. If you build for government, prequalification is usually the price of entry, so start the application before the tender you want appears.

Local Jobs First, social procurement and the Fair Jobs Code

Victoria leans on procurement to deliver local and social outcomes, and several policies can apply to a single tender:

• Local Jobs First. Set under the Local Jobs First Act 2003, it combines the Victorian Industry Participation Policy (local industry objectives) and the Major Projects Skills Guarantee (apprentices, trainees and cadets). On projects it covers, bidders prepare a Local Industry Development Plan and lodge it through the Victorian Management Centre run by the Industry Capability Network (ICN) Victoria. Reforms that commenced on 1 July 2026 strengthen how those plans are enforced, for projects tendered on or after that date.
• Social Procurement Framework. Suppliers may be asked to plan, respond to and report on social and sustainable outcomes. Buyers can also go directly to certified social benefit suppliers, which include social enterprises certified by Social Traders, Australian Disability Enterprises, and Victorian Aboriginal businesses certified by Supply Nation or Kinaway.
• Fair Jobs Code. Larger contracts require a Fair Jobs Code Pre-Assessment Certificate, which is free to obtain, so apply for it before a tender needs it.
• Supplier Code of Conduct. It sets minimum standards for every supplier, whatever the contract value.

ICN Victoria also helps suppliers understand Local Jobs First and connect with projects, which makes it a useful first call for a business new to government work.

How to respond to a Victorian Government tender

Qualify before you commit. Check the mandatory requirements, policy obligations, contract terms and evaluation criteria against your capacity. A bid you cannot resource well rarely scores well.

Plan the response against the criteria. List every requirement and schedule, including any Local Jobs First or social procurement material, and give each an owner. A compliance matrix keeps this visible to the whole team.

Use the questions period. Buying for Victoria explains that unless a question includes commercially sensitive information, the buyer will share the question and answer with all tenderers. Ask early, and read every answer, because other bidders’ questions often change how you should respond.

Write for the evaluator. Answer each criterion in the order it is asked, with evidence. Our guide to tender writing best practices covers structure and tone.

Lodge early. Lodge by following the instructions in the invitation to supply documents, electronically through the portal. Buying for Victoria warns that late submissions are generally not accepted except in exceptional circumstances, and advises allowing time for your offer to upload.

Victorian tenders often stack several policy schedules on top of the core response, which is where AutoRFP.ai earns its keep: it drafts answers from your team’s approved content with the sources cited beside each one, so the people writing the Local Jobs First and social procurement sections are not also rebuilding the standard answers from scratch.

How Victorian councils tender

Victoria’s councils sit outside the Purchasing Board’s policies. Under section 108 of the Local Government Act 2020, each council must prepare and adopt a procurement policy that promotes open and fair competition and provides value for money, and sets the threshold above which it must go to tender. Section 109 requires a council to comply with that policy before entering into a contract.

Each council then chooses its own tender portal. Boroondara uses VendorPanel, Wellington and Latrobe use eProcure, and Surf Coast uses Tenderlink, and councils do switch platforms from time to time. Check the tenders page of each council in your patch and register on whichever system it uses.

Make Victorian tendering repeatable

The suppliers who win steadily in Victoria treat the state as a system: registered on the portal, positioned on the state purchase contracts and registers that matter, prequalified where construction requires it, and ready with the policy material that Victorian tenders ask for. From there, winning comes down to the quality of each response; our guide on how to win a bid covers the habits that lift win rates over time.

AutoRFP.ai helps tender teams keep that quality consistent across many bids by building every draft from approved answers, citing the source behind each response, and passing anything it cannot support to a person to review. Our RFP software page shows how it works on a government tender.