The national price book for public works

The framework is Law 199 of 30 December 2025, the 2026 budget law, which at article 1 paragraphs 487, 488 and 489 provides, with effect from 2026, for a national public works price book and a standing monitoring body at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. The three paragraphs must be read together, since they form a single mechanism.

Paragraph 487 provides for the national price book to be adopted by decree of the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, in concert with the Minister of Economy and Finance, following an opinion from the Conferenza Unificata, the joint state and local government conference. The price book sets out the cost of products, equipment and operations relating to works contracts, is updated annually and is drawn up in line with the criteria of Annex I.14 to the public contracts code, drawing where appropriate on the coordination panel provided for in that annex.

On this point the provision is explicit, and current commentary has at times overstated its reach. The national price book is not a binding list and is not intended to replace the regional price books.

Its function is one of support and coordination. It operates as an instrument serving the preparation of the price books adopted by the regions under article 41 paragraph 13 of the code and of the prezzari speciali adopted by contracting authorities and granting bodies with ministerial authorisation. To that end it indicates, for products, equipment and operations, the possible price variation thresholds applicable at territorial level, having regard to the context, the subject matter of the contract and the specific conditions of execution.

The central element is therefore the band of variability, not the point value. Regions and contracting authorities continue to set their own lists, but departures from the national values and territorial thresholds will have to be reasoned.

The intervention does not stand alone but builds on a design already traced by the public contracts code, and responds to difficulties accumulated in recent years. It answers difficulties accumulated over preceding years.

The system comprises twenty one separate territorial references, drawn up under common criteria but with survey methods and item structures that are not uniform. Comparing the cost of the same operation in two neighbouring regions is not straightforward, and in some cases not technically possible without manually reconciling the items.

Added to this structural fragmentation came a period of considerable instability in construction material prices, which exposed the limits of the annual updating cycle: a price book built on data gathered the previous autumn can be out of date before it comes into force, and divergences between territories widen beyond what differences in context alone would explain. The limits of annually based price books thereby became evident.

The national tier addresses both fronts. Territorial variation thresholds provide a common band of physiological variability, and the obligation to give reasons for departures introduces a transparency constraint on how regional lists are formed.

The mechanism of paragraph 487 and following does not stand apart from the price revision regime, and this is why the delay in implementation has practical as well as formal significance. That is why the delay in implementation has practical weight.

The mechanisms for adjusting amounts during construction operate by comparing price books, the one in force at contract signature and the one in force when the work is valued. Until the national tier is operational, that comparison remains anchored entirely to the regional price books, with the differences of method that characterise them.

Introducing a common reference on variation thresholds would therefore also bear on the construction stage, supplying a benchmark for assessing whether a variation recorded between two editions of a regional price book falls within a band regarded as physiological. The price revision regime and its calculation mechanism are covered in the dedicated page.

Paragraph 488 establishes the monitoring body for public works price books, located within the Ministry's department for public works and housing policy. It is the organ intended to supply the national price book with data.

Its remit covers the collection, analysis and comparison of data on the costs of products, equipment and operations, the analysis of market dynamics affecting price formation in the various territorial areas, the promotion of uniform methods for preparing and updating price books, and sample monitoring of their application to contracts exceeding one hundred million euros in value. Analysis of market dynamics is added to it.

The body operates in liaison with the coordination panel of Annex I.14 and may draw on the higher council for public works, sharing data and methodologies with the state accounting department and with the regions. On a contracting authority's proposal, feasibility designs for works funded from national or European resources may also be submitted to it for an opinion on the reasonableness of costs, an opinion which is not binding.

Here sits the information that matters most in practice, and it is information of non implementation. It is information of non implementation.

The law has been in force since 1 January 2026 and the one hundred and eighty day deadline for adopting the decree closed at the end of June 2026. At that date the ministerial decree had not been adopted, and the opinion of the Conferenza Unificata, which paragraph 487 requires as a mandatory preliminary step, had not been obtained either. The procedure is therefore incomplete not only in its outcome but in its preparatory phase, and without that opinion the process of forming the instrument cannot conclude.

The operational consequence is that the national price book, as at the date this page was drafted, exists as a legislative provision and not as a consultable instrument. Anyone preparing a computo metrico estimativo continues to work from the territorially competent regional price book, under article 41 paragraph 13 of the code and Annex I.14, and price revision during construction remains anchored to those same regional books.

It is worth distinguishing what would change for contracting authorities from what would change for designers, because they are not the same. The effects are not the same for the two.

For contracting authorities and regions the main effect would be the duty to give reasons. A departure from national values or territorial thresholds would no longer be a decision internal to the process of forming a price book, but one requiring justification.

For anyone preparing a bill the effect would be indirect and still significant. A common reference on variation thresholds would supply a benchmark that is absent today: the ability to check whether a rate taken from a regional price book falls within a band of variability regarded as physiological nationally. It would not change the source to be applied, which would remain the regional price book, but it would make available a plausibility check that today can only be carried out by empirical comparison between the lists of neighbouring regions.

Three steps signal progress and are worth monitoring in order: the item appearing on the agenda of a Conferenza Unificata session, the opinion being given, and publication of the interministerial decree. The organisational decree relating to the monitoring body follows its own course, and its adoption does not imply adoption of the price book.