Price books for the computo metrico estimativo

Article 31 of Annex I.7 to the public contracts code sets out the order in which elementary prices are to be found when an item is missing and has to be determined by analysis. The same hierarchy guides the choice of the bill's primary source in practice.

The time criterion matters just as much: rates must be those current at the date the design is approved. A bill built on a superseded prezzario is open to challenge even where the quantities are correct.

Each region and autonomous province publishes its own prezzario, drawn up under the common criteria of Annex I.14 to the code and updated annually. They are made available free of charge on institutional websites, normally both in a readable format and in an interchange format that can be imported into the main measurement software packages.

The typical structure separates rates for completed works from rates for elementary resources, meaning materials, plant hire and labour, and includes a section devoted to measurement criteria and technical specifications. That section should be read before any item is applied: it establishes what the rate covers, which obligations are already included and in what unit the work is to be measured. Applying a rate while ignoring its notes is one of the most common errors and one of the hardest to detect afterwards.

Validity is annual. A prezzario ceases to have effect by 31 December each year and may be used transitionally until 30 June of the following year for tender designs approved by that date.

An item is not simply a rate. Every component affects correct application, and reading it in full before importing it into the bill avoids the errors that are hardest to recover from.

Where an item exists but does not match the real conditions of the project, adjusting it arbitrarily is the worst option: it should be replaced by a new item determined through a reasoned analysis. Replacing it with an analysed item keeps the rate documentable.

In the private sector there is no obligation to use the regional prezzario, though it remains a useful and readily defensible source. Alongside it, practice draws on sector price books and on the lists published by chambers of commerce in several provinces, prepared with the support of technical committees and available in formats importable into measurement software.

The substantive difference concerns function rather than source. In private work the price book serves to build a credible estimate and to make quotations comparable, while the contract price arises from agreement between client and contractor and from the accepted offer. Small quantities, difficult site access, the level of finish required and the contractor's own organisation can produce values noticeably different from list averages, in either direction.

No prezzario covers the entire field of possible operations. Where an item is missing, or where an existing item does not match the real conditions of the project, the rate is determined by analysis: elementary prices are applied to the quantities of materials, labour, plant hire and transport needed to produce one unit of the operation, and the percentages prescribed for overheads and for the contractor's profit are added to the result. The method and the percentages are covered in the dedicated page on price analysis.

The 2026 budget law provided for a national public works prezzario, conceived not as a binding list but as a supporting and coordinating instrument for the regional and special price books, indicating variation thresholds applicable at territorial level. The mechanism depends on an implementing decree whose procedure, as at the date this page was drafted, has not been completed. Until then the operational reference remains the regional prezzario.