Types of procedure and their duration

The Public Procurement Act provides for several types. The conditions and deadlines of each derive from the law and this article does not reproduce them; the table below gives orientation on what each type is for.

Type of procedure	Character	Typical use in construction
Simplified procedure	least formal, lighter documentation	most small and medium construction procurements
Open procedure	any interested party may tender	standard larger construction procurement
Restricted procedure	requests to participate first, then invitations	where qualification is critical and candidates numerous
Competitive procedure with negotiation	tenders are negotiated	where the solution needs refining
Competitive dialogue	the solution is developed with tenderers	complex, novel projects
Innovation partnership	aimed at creating a new solution	rare in construction
Negotiated procedure without prior publication	exceptional, narrow conditions	exceptional cases, must be justified

In practice the first three are central in construction. Negotiated procedures are underused in the sector, because they allow the solution to be refined before the final price is agreed, which is often precisely what a construction project needs.

Procedure types differ along three dimensions, and those three cover the whole field. They are openness, duration and volume of documents.

Dimension	Question	Why it matters in construction
Openness	open to all, or with a pre selection	sets the number of tenders and the evaluation workload
Negotiation	can tenders be negotiated	allows the solution to be refined before the price is fixed
Deadlines	what are the minimum time limits	the most practical dimension for construction works

The third dimension is the most practical in construction, because preparing a tender depends on third parties: subcontractors and suppliers, whose response time is outside the tenderer's control. Time is a substantive factor here.

A minimum time limit is not the duration of a procedure. It is one of four stages, and usually not the longest.

Stage	Who bears it	Predictability
Preparation before the notice is published	contracting authority	good, but often underestimated
Tender submission deadline	the law, as a minimum	complete
Examination and evaluation of tenders	contracting authority	depends on number and complexity
Standstill and any review proceedings	tenderer initiates	worst

Preparation is usually the longest stage in construction procurement, and it is the authority's own work, not a delay imposed by law. No average duration figure includes it, which is the most common reason procurement timetables fail.

Institutional sources estimate that the average duration of procurement procedures may fall from around 87 days to about 50 after the changes of 1 September 2026. The figure is an order of magnitude.

Indicator	Before the reform	After the reform
Average duration of procurement procedures	around 87 days	around 50 days

That figure deserves two qualifications. It is an average across all procurements, not a promise about any one of them. And it measures the procedure, not the preparation: the 37 day reduction comes from the procedural part, while the authority's own preparatory work stays the same.

Three steps, of which only the third is a real choice. The first two follow from the threshold.

Determine the estimated value and the applicable threshold. This is covered by the thresholds branch.

Check which types are permitted at all at that threshold. Usually few are.

Choose among the permitted types the one that suits the subject matter. Here the choice is real, but the room is narrow.

In most cases the first step is decisive and little room remains. More room exists for complex and larger procurements, where negotiated procedures are permitted, and it is there that the choice deserves serious consideration rather than a default open procedure.

Two things affect procedure types directly. A simplified procedure may in future be run where the estimated value of the procurement is below the international threshold. For construction works this means up to €5,404,000, which is many times wider than before.

This widens the field of the simplified procedure considerably, because the intermediate tier was previously a separate procedure: a procurement worth €150,000 to €5,404,000 went to a full procedure, and can now be run as a simplified one. The change lightens most procedures.

Institutional sources estimate the change affects roughly 49 % of all public procurements. The estimate rests on past statistics.

For construction works this means medium sized procurements move into a simpler procedure but with a longer tender deadline: 25 days instead of 15. The procedure therefore becomes lighter in form and friendlier to tenderers in time at once.

The type of procedure is fixed by the threshold in most cases, and real room to choose opens only with more complex procurements, where negotiated procedures are permitted. Duration is set not by the minimum deadline but by four stages together, of which the longest, preparation, is excluded from every average duration figure.

From 1 September 2026 a simplified procedure may be run up to the international threshold, for construction works up to €5,404,000, which moves most medium sized construction procurements into a lighter procedure. Average procedure duration should, on institutional estimates, fall from around 87 days to about 50, but that figure does not cover the authority's own preparation, which stays the same.