Can a Foreign Manufacturer Sell Medical Devices in Ukraine Directly? Tender Rules, Delivery Terms and a One-Month Market Snapshot

Foreign manufacturers often ask us whether they can take part in Ukrainian public tenders without a local distributor. We analysed medical equipment and supplies purchases in Prozorro, Ukraine’s electronic public procurement system, from 25 September to 25 October 2026, together with the contracts of the state enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine (MPU). The goal was to answer this question with numbers, not assumptions.

In short

• MPU ran less than 1% of all purchases, but they made up almost half of the market value – UAH 2.5 billion out of UAH 5.2 billion.
• Direct participation is possible: Prozorro is open to companies from any country, and non-residents already win MPU tenders.
• But such participants are rare: out of 914 bidders in the month, only 3 were non-residents, and all of them bid in MPU tenders.
• MPU allows a non-resident to deliver on DAP terms to its warehouse in Ukraine, while a resident must deliver DDP.
• Without registration of the device in Ukraine, the bid will be rejected under any sales model. That is why an authorized representative is needed before you go to Prozorro.

Market snapshot: 25 September – 25 October 2026

During the month, Prozorro had 7,322 medical device purchases (CPV codes 331 and 33696, excluding cancelled ones) with a total estimated value of about UAH 5.2 billion. They were run by 2,285 contracting authorities.

What was purchased

The market splits into two very different parts:

• Many small purchases. Half of all purchases are under UAH 25 thousand, three quarters are under UAH 144 thousand. Almost half of all purchases are consumables, with a median of about UAH 16 thousand.
• Large centralised tenders. MPU ran only 50 purchases, less than 1% by number, but worth UAH 2.5 billion – almost half of the total value. The largest were oxygenators (UAH 389 million), an endoscopic imaging system (UAH 350 million), MRI systems (UAH 218 and 194 million), a linear accelerator (UAH 172 million) and cochlear implant sound processors (UAH 134 and 119 million).

Competition. In the 3,780 competitive purchases that received bids, there were 2.9 bids on average. In 42% of them there was only one bidder. Another 397 purchases did not take place.

Who took part. Bids came from 914 different companies. Only 3 of them were non-residents: from the Netherlands, Poland and Serbia. All of them took part only in MPU tenders:

• Medtronic Trading NL B.V. (the Netherlands, a trading company of the Medtronic group) was declared the winner of two tenders (the contracts were awaiting signature at the time of analysis): adult oxygenators (UAH 16.1 million, UA-2026-09-21-014604-a) and epicardial pacing leads (UAH 4.9 million, UA-2026-09-24-003726-a);
• in the tender for cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators (559 units, estimated value UAH 86.6 million, UA-2026-09-28-007046-a) only two non-residents competed: Abbott Medical Balkan doo Beograd (Serbia) and Medtronic Trading NL B.V. After the e-auction the price dropped by 20%: Medtronic stopped at UAH 69,200,000, and Abbott offered UAH 69,199,999 – 1 hryvnia less. The auction rules allow this, because the minimum bid step counts from the bidder’s own previous bid, not from the competitor’s price. MPU extended the review of Abbott’s bid (decision of 20.10.2026), so the final winner is not yet confirmed;
• MITORS Sp. z o.o. (Poland) bid in a tender for carotid stenting devices (UAH 1.7 million, UA-2026-09-15-014890-a) together with a Ukrainian bidder.

Two things are worth noting. First, a “foreign bidder” is not always the factory itself: Medtronic and Abbott bid through a trading company and a regional company of their groups, not through the legal manufacturers. Second, the contact persons in both bids have Ukrainian phone numbers. So even with direct participation, there is a team working in Ukraine behind the bid.

Can you take part directly: what the rules say

The Law of Ukraine “On Public Procurement” states directly that bidders, both residents and non-residents, take part in procurement procedures on equal terms (Article 5, part 1). The law defines a bidder as a legal entity, “resident or non-resident”, that has submitted a tender offer (Article 1). Separate restrictions apply only to sanctions and the aggressor state.

How this works in practice is described in the BDO Ukraine guide (May 2026):

• a foreign company registers on any of the 13 accredited e-platforms, and some of them have an English interface;
• the agreement with the platform is bilingual, and the account can be topped up in EUR or USD;
• a non-resident submits the documents required by the laws of its own country, or their equivalents with an explanatory letter;
• documents are submitted in Ukrainian, and translations are certified by the bidder, a notary or an apostille;
• a company without a representative office in Ukraine does not have to sign documents with a Ukrainian electronic signature.

MPU also openly works with non-residents: its website has separate materials on payments to non-residents, and its contract has separate terms for them.

Delivery terms: DAP or DDP

The tender card in Prozorro usually shows only the delivery address and deadline. Look for the Incoterms in the draft contract attached to the tender documents. We checked MPU contracts in all tenders where non-residents took part. The template is the same:

2.2. Products are delivered on DAP or DDP terms – CUSTOMER’s warehouse (in Ukraine). If the SUPPLIER is a resident of Ukraine, products are delivered on DDP terms.

What this means in practice:

• A resident delivers only DDP: it clears the goods through customs itself and brings them to the MPU warehouse.
• A non-resident can deliver DAP to the MPU warehouse in Ukraine. The supplier arranges delivery, and MPU handles import customs clearance. Under the contract, transport, loading and waiting time at customs are paid by the supplier (clause 2.5).

So there is no FCA or EXW here. A foreign manufacturer cannot simply ship from its factory – it delivers to a warehouse in Ukraine, just without customs clearance.

These are MPU terms. Hospitals that run their own purchases usually expect goods already cleared through customs with VAT, which means DDP. Arranging this without a Ukrainian company or partner is difficult.

Payment and price

Under the MPU contract and the answers in its supplier FAQ:

• payment is usually made in advance, within 30 days after the supplier provides a bank guarantee for the return of the advance;
• the guarantee must be issued by the supplier’s servicing bank;
• no bid security or performance security is required;
• for a non-resident, the price is fixed as a foreign currency equivalent at the interbank rate on the date the winner is determined, and payment in foreign currency is possible;
• a non-resident may once ask to review the unit price within 30 days after prepayment (clause 3.1.3 of the contract).

Documents: registration first, then the tender

Even with direct participation, the requirements for the device itself stay the same. The MPU document list (Annex 2, item 6) requires:

• a declaration of conformity with the Technical Regulation;
• an extract from the Register of persons responsible for placing medical devices on the market.

This means that when the bid is submitted, the device must already be placed on the market in Ukraine through an authorized representative. Without this, the bid will be rejected, even if everything else is in order.

Real bids confirm this. For example, in the defibrillator tender Abbott uploaded certificates of conformity from a Ukrainian conformity assessment body and declarations of conformity as its very first documents.

There are other requirements a foreign company should be ready for:

• the winner submits certificates only for the head of the bidder, not for an authorized representative (item 47 of the Procurement Specifics, Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 1178);
• all documents are submitted in Ukrainian, translations must be certified or apostilled;
• the winner must submit its documents within 4 days;
• to sell through Prozorro Market, products are added via MPU’s MedData system, and the review takes 10 working days, up to 60 days when the workload is high.

What gets in the way in practice

1. Device registration. It is the first step under any sales model, and it is often the one left for later.
2. Language and deadlines. Questions, customer requests and replies are in Ukrainian, and the deadlines are short.
3. Logistics and taxes. DAP works with MPU, but most buyers want DDP.
4. Scale. Thousands of small consumables purchases are not worth serving directly from abroad.

Two market entry models

The last row is the same in both columns, and that is the main point.

Conclusion

Direct participation of a foreign manufacturer in Ukrainian public procurement is possible and already works. But in practice it fits one niche – large MPU tenders for expensive equipment. For the rest of the market you need a Ukrainian partner.

So the order of steps for a manufacturer is:

1. Choose the segment: MPU centralised procurement or hospitals.
2. Choose the sales model for this segment: directly, through a distributor or through your own company.
3. Register the device in Ukraine through an authorized representative – this is needed under any model. What happens when this step is postponed is shown in our practical case about a manufacturer from India.

If you are planning to enter the Ukrainian market and are not sure which model suits you, contact us. We will help you review the tenders in your category and prepare the registration.

Methodology. Prozorro data (prozorro.gov.ua, public-api.prozorro.gov.ua), export of 25.10.2026, period 25.09-25.10.2026. CPV codes 331xxxxx and 33696xxx. The sample includes purchases published in the period, purchases with qualification in the period and reports on contract purchases; cancelled purchases are excluded. Estimated value is as stated by the contracting authority. Delivery and payment terms are taken from MPU draft contracts (Annex 4) and document lists (Annex 2), including tender UA-2026-09-21-014604-a. Rules for non-residents are based on the BDO Ukraine “Guide on tenders accessibility” (27.05.2026) and the supplier FAQ on the MPU website (mpu.gov.ua). This article is for information only and is not legal advice.