Public Procurement and Tax Haven Exposure in Europe

Using matched tender-level public procurement and firm-level ownership data, we document how often procurement suppliers have ownership links to jurisdictions described as tax havens. We find that 5.5% of tenders by value - equivalent to € 150 billion annually - are awarded to firms linked to jurisdictions black- or grey-listed by the EU. Reliance on such suppliers varies widely across member states, exceeding 10% in some. We show which jurisdictions appear most often in ownership chains, how these patterns relate to standard tax-haven indicators, and that tenders co-financed by EU funds or with more bidders are less likely to be won by tax-haven-linked firms.