Joint Bidding / Teaming Agreement for Tenders: Template and How to Draft One (2026)

What a joint bidding agreement is and when you need one A joint bidding agreement, also called a teaming agreement or a consortium agreement, is a contract between two or more businesses who decide to bid together for a tender or contract they could not win, or would rather not win, alone. It is signed before the bid goes in. It governs how the parties prepare and submit the bid, who leads, how costs are shared, and what each party will do if the bid wins. It exists because big tenders often ask for a mix of skills, capacity or local presence that no single bidder has. One firm has the technology, another has the delivery footprint, a third has the sector track record. Bidding together lets them meet the requirement. The teaming agreement locks in that cooperation so one party cannot quietly take the opportunity to a different partner halfway through. It is important to separate two documents. The teaming or joint bidding agreement is signed before the award and is mostly about the bid itself and exclusivity. The consortium or delivery agreement, often a separate and fuller contract, governs how the parties actually perform the work if they win. Some teaming agreements include a short form of the delivery terms, or an obligation to negotiate them in good faith, so the parties are not left starting from nothing after a win. This template is general information, not legal advice. Public procurement rules, competition law and the tender's own instructions all affect what you can agree, so confirm the local position and the tender rules before you rely on it. ## A joint bidding / teaming agreement template you can copy ```

JOINT BIDDING (TEAMING) AGREEMENT Date: [date] Parties: [Party A name], of [address] ("Party A", the Lead) [Party B name], of [address] ("Party B") [add further members] (together the "Team") 1. THE OPPORTUNITY The Team will prepare and submit a joint bid for [name of tender / reference number] issued by [client / authority] (the "Opportunity"), with a bid deadline of [date]. 2. ROLE OF EACH PARTY Party A will act as Lead and single point of contact with the client, and is responsible for [bid sections]. Party B is responsible for [scope / work package]. The intended work split on award is set out in Schedule 1. 3. EXCLUSIVITY During this agreement, no Party will bid for the Opportunity alone or as part of any other team, nor help a competing bidder, without the written consent of the others. This lasts until [award, or the Opportunity is withdrawn, or the date below]. 4. BID COSTS Each Party bears its own costs of preparing the bid, unless agreed otherwise. Shared bid costs (for example [bid writing, bonds]) are split [how]. 5. CONFIDENTIALITY AND NON-SOLICITATION Each Party will keep the bid, the others' information and the client's information confidential, and use them only for the Opportunity. No Party will solicit the others' staff involved in the bid during the bid and for [number] months after. 6. IF THE BID WINS On award, the Parties will enter into a [consortium / subcontract / delivery] agreement for the work, on the basis set out in Schedule 2, and will negotiate any open terms in good faith within [number] days. The work will be split broadly as in Schedule 1. 7. IF THE BID LOSES OR IS WITHDRAWN If the Opportunity is not won or is withdrawn, this agreement ends, each Party keeps its own background materials, and the confidentiality and non-solicitation duties continue for the period stated. 8. INDEPENDENCE AND LIABILITY Nothing here creates a partnership or agency, or authority for one Party to bind another, except that the Lead may submit the joint bid on the Team's behalf as described. Each Party is responsible for its own acts. 9. TERM, TERMINATION AND GOVERNING LAW This agreement starts on the date above and ends on the earlier of award and signature of the delivery agreement, loss or withdrawal of the Opportunity, or [long stop date]. It is governed by the law of [place]; disputes go to [arbitration / courts of [place]]. SIGNED for each Party: ____________ Name/Title/Date for each Schedule 1: Intended work split and responsibilities Schedule 2: Agreed heads of terms for the delivery agreement

- No work split. Without Schedule 1, a win triggers an argument about who does what and who earns what.
- No delivery terms. A teaming agreement that stops at the award leaves the hardest negotiation for the worst moment, right after a win when the clock is running.
- Sharing more than needed. Exchanging detailed pricing or cost data beyond what the joint bid requires is a competition risk and sometimes a tender breach.
- Ignoring the tender rules. Many tenders set their own rules for consortia, including joint and several liability to the client. The agreement must fit those rules, not contradict them. ## How jurisdiction changes things In India, public procurement under the General Financial Rules and the tender's own conditions often requires consortium members to accept joint and several liability to the authority, and may require the agreement to be submitted with the bid, so draft it to match. In the UK and EU, competition rules allow genuine joint bidding where parties could not bid credibly alone, but treat agreements between parties who each could bid alone with more suspicion, so keep a record of why you needed to team up. In the United States, teaming agreements in federal procurement are recognised, but their enforceability as a binding promise to subcontract has been tested in court and depends heavily on how definite the terms are. Wherever you bid, read the tender's rules on consortia first, because they override your private preferences. ## Keeping the bid team aligned from pitch to delivery A joint bid moves fast and under a deadline. The teaming agreement, the bid documents, the work split and the heads of terms for delivery all get drafted at once, often by different parties, and they have to stay consistent. The moment a win arrives, the team needs to find the exact terms it agreed weeks earlier and turn them into a delivery contract without losing anything. That work, drafting from a clear template, checking that an exclusivity clause is narrow enough and that the delivery heads of terms are not forgotten, editing fast when the client changes the requirement, and keeping every version linked and dated, is the same drafting and tracking job that runs across a company's whole contract base. It can sit in one AI workspace tuned to how your company contracts, so the bid, the teaming agreement and the delivery terms stay connected instead of scattered across a shared drive. [Adira](https://adiralaw.com) is built around that single-workspace idea. For one tender the template above is enough on its own; the point worth borrowing is that a bid team moves faster when its documents live in one place and stay in step.