Hilma Platform
Hilma (hankintailmoitukset.fi) is Finland's official electronic platform for public procurement notices. Every contracting authority must publish its contract notices above the national threshold there, which makes Hilma the single most important information source for suppliers. It is not the whole picture, though: small-value procurements, tenders that many organisations publish only in their own systems, and the tender documents themselves live elsewhere. This page explains what Hilma is, what gets published on it and what you won't find there.
Definition
Hilma is the electronic notification system for Finnish public procurement notices at hankintailmoitukset.fi. Statutory responsibility lies with the State Treasury (Valtiokonttori) since 1 January 2025, and Hansel Oy operates the platform. Contracting authorities must publish contract notices above the national threshold on Hilma, and EU-level notices are transmitted automatically to TED (Tenders Electronic Daily). Hilma carries contract notices, prior information notices, contract award notices, direct award notices and corrigenda. Notices are classified with the EU's CPV vocabulary and can be searched by keyword, CPV code, region and contracting authority. The obligation to publish is set out in Sections 58–62 and 101–102 of the Public Procurement Act (1397/2016), implementing Directive 2014/24/EU. Hilma adopted the EU eForms standard in October 2023 and offers an open-data API. A Hilma notice is a summary: the tender documents and the submission itself sit in the contracting authority's e-procurement system, such as Cloudia, Hanki or Tarjouspalvelu, which the notice links to. Under Bill HE 230/2026 the State Treasury would from 1 January 2027 gain the power to prescribe the data reported in Hilma notices, and notice data would be stored in the national procurement data repository.
Practical Example
A Finnish cloud-migration company decides to pursue public-sector clients. It starts with Hilma searches on CPV codes 72253200-5, 72260000-5 and 72310000-1. The searches return dozens of hits a week, most of them the wrong size or region, and two genuinely relevant tenders surface only when a week of the tender period is left. A municipal small-value procurement never shows up at all, because it falls below the national threshold. The company moves its monitoring to Haavi: it describes in its profile what it does and for whom, and Haavi compares that profile with every new notice from Hilma, TED and dozens of other sources. Matching tenders arrive on the day of publication, leaving the full tender period for preparing the bid.
Common Mistake
Suppliers assume that a Hilma email alert covers everything. An alert only catches notices that carry the exact keyword or CPV code the supplier thought to set, and contracting authorities sometimes classify procurements under different codes than a supplier would expect. Procurements below the national threshold and tenders published only in an organisation's own e-procurement system never appear on Hilma at all. A second common mistake is skipping the tender documents in the contracting authority's system: the Hilma notice is only a summary, and the requirements, annexes and contract terms are elsewhere.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Hilma free to use?
Yes. Hilma is free for both contracting authorities and suppliers: searching notices, reading them and following the links to the tender documents cost nothing. This is a legal requirement, since procurement notices must be freely accessible to guarantee equal access and transparency, and the platform is funded from the Finnish state budget. Commercial services such as Haavi build on Hilma's open data to add what the platform itself does not do: matching notices to your company's profile, combining Hilma with other sources and analysing the tender documents.
Are all Finnish public procurement notices on Hilma?
No. Every procurement above the national threshold must be published on Hilma, but procurements below it are not, and municipalities and agencies typically publish those in their own small-procurement channels. Many organisations also run tenders directly in their own e-procurement systems. Defence and security procurements follow the Act on Public Defence and Security Procurement (1531/2011) and may use other channels, and tenders from other EU countries or NATO agencies are published elsewhere entirely. Haavi monitors Hilma alongside dozens of these other sources so that the tenders that fit your company end up in one view.
Can foreign suppliers use Hilma to find Finnish procurement opportunities?
Yes. Hilma is open to all suppliers regardless of nationality, in line with the EU principles of non-discrimination and free movement. The interface is available in Finnish, Swedish and English, and EU-level notices also appear on TED in all official EU languages. Suppliers from EU/EEA countries have the same right to participate in Finnish procurements as domestic suppliers, and companies from GPA signatory countries have access to EU-level procurements above the GPA thresholds. Note that tender documents and contract terms are usually in Finnish (or Swedish in bilingual municipalities), and the contracting authority may require Finnish-language correspondence during the contract.
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