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From 1 January 2026, the EU procurement rules apply to supply and service contracts worth €140,000 or more when a central government authority buys, and €216,000 or more when a municipality, region or other sub-central authority buys. For works contracts, the threshold is €5,404,000. All three figures are lower than in 2024 and 2025, when they stood at €143,000, €221,000 and €5,538,000. They stay in force until 31 December 2027.
For a consultancy looking at a €200,000 contract, the type of buyer decides the answer. A Danish ministry has to follow the EU directive. A Dutch municipality does not, unless options and extensions bring the estimated value to €216,000.
Every revised threshold fell for 2026 and 2027
All values are net of VAT. A contract is covered when its estimated value is equal to or greater than the threshold.
| Directive | Contract | Threshold | Set by |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014/24/EU, public sector | Supplies, services and design contests, central government authorities | €140,000 | Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2152 |
| 2014/24/EU, public sector | Supplies, services and design contests, sub-central authorities | €216,000 | Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2152 |
| 2014/24/EU, public sector | Works | €5,404,000 | Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2152 |
| 2014/24/EU, public sector | Social and other specific services in Annex XIV | €750,000 | Article 4(d) of the directive, not revised |
| 2014/25/EU, utilities | Supplies, services and design contests | €432,000 | Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2150 |
| 2014/25/EU, utilities | Works | €5,404,000 | Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2150 |
| 2014/25/EU, utilities | Social and other specific services in Annex XVII | €1,000,000 | Article 15(c) of the directive, not revised |
| 2014/23/EU, concessions | Works and services concessions | €5,404,000 | Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2151 |
| 2009/81/EC, defence and security | Supplies and services | €432,000 | Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2487 |
| 2009/81/EC, defence and security | Works | €5,404,000 | Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2487 |
Directive 2014/24/EU contains two more rules. Works contracts that a public authority subsidises directly by more than 50 percent are covered from €5,404,000, and the service contracts linked to them from €216,000. When a central government authority in the field of defence buys supplies, €140,000 applies only to the products listed in Annex III of the directive. For other products the threshold is €216,000.
The Commission adopted the regulations for the public sector, utilities and concessions on 22 October 2025, and they were published in the Official Journal the next day. The defence regulation followed on 2 December 2025 and was published on 4 December. All four apply from 1 January 2026.
The Commission revises the thresholds every two years with effect from 1 January, so that they match the thresholds of the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement. That agreement sets its thresholds in special drawing rights, the IMF’s reserve unit. The euro values follow the exchange rate over the 24 months ending on 31 August before the revision, rounded down to the nearest thousand euros. The €750,000 and €1,000,000 thresholds for social services are written into the directives themselves and are not part of the two-year revision.
In Danish kroner, the €140,000 threshold is DKK 1,044,400
The Commission published the kroner values in the Official Journal communication C/2025/5732 on 23 October 2025. They apply to the directives on the public sector, utilities and concessions for 2026 and 2027:
- €140,000: DKK 1,044,400
- €216,000: DKK 1,611,360
- €432,000: DKK 3,222,720
- €750,000: DKK 5,595,000
- €1,000,000: DKK 7,460,000
- €5,404,000: DKK 40,313,840
The communication does not cover the defence directive. The Netherlands uses the euro, so Dutch buyers apply the euro figures directly.
The buyer’s status decides between €140,000 and €216,000
Central government authorities are the contracting authorities listed in Annex I of Directive 2014/24/EU, together with their successor bodies where the list has changed at national level. The Danish entry begins with Folketinget, Rigsrevisionen and Statsministeriet, followed by the ministries and their agencies. The Dutch entry lists the ministries, starting with the Ministerie van Algemene Zaken, and the departments under them.
Every contracting authority that is not on that list counts as sub-central. That covers municipalities, regions and other public bodies, and for them the service threshold is €216,000. A water company, energy network or transport operator that buys for that activity follows the utilities directive, where supplies and services are covered from €432,000.
Options and renewals count towards the contract value
The threshold is compared with the whole estimated value, not with the first year. Article 5(1) of Directive 2014/24/EU bases the calculation on “the total amount payable, net of VAT, as estimated by the contracting authority, including any form of option and any renewals of the contracts as explicitly set out in the procurement documents”. Prizes or payments to candidates and tenderers are added as well.
A sub-central buyer that plans a two-year assignment at €200,000 with an option to extend for a third year at €100,000 therefore has an estimated value of €300,000. That is above €216,000, and the directive applies.
The estimate is fixed at the moment the call for competition is sent. Where no call is planned, it is fixed when the buyer starts the procedure, for example by contacting suppliers. Service contracts without a total price are valued over their full term if they run for 48 months or less. Longer contracts, and those without a fixed term, are valued at the monthly value multiplied by 48.
Regular supply and service contracts, or contracts meant to be renewed within a set period, are valued on the basis of the successive contracts. The buyer can use the actual value of successive contracts of the same type over the previous 12 months or financial year, adjusted for expected changes. Alternatively, it can use the estimated value of the contracts over the 12 months after the first delivery.
Splitting a contract to stay below the threshold is not allowed
Article 5(3) of the directive says: “A procurement shall not be subdivided with the effect of preventing it from falling within the scope of this Directive, unless justified by objective reasons.” The method used to estimate the value may not be chosen with the intention of excluding the procurement from the directive either.
When a contract is divided into lots, the value of all lots is added up. If the total reaches the threshold, the directive applies to every lot. A buyer may still award small lots outside the EU procedures, as long as each lot is worth less than €80,000 for supplies or services, or €1 million for works. Those lots together may make up no more than 20 percent of the total value of all lots. In Danish kroner, €80,000 is DKK 596,800.
A contracting authority with separate operational units adds up the value for all units. A unit that is independently responsible for its own procurement may estimate the value at its own level.
Concessions are measured by the concessionaire’s turnover
For a concession, the value is the total turnover the concessionaire will generate over the duration of the contract, net of VAT, according to Article 8 of Directive 2014/23/EU. If the value at the time of award is more than 20 percent higher than the estimate, the value at award counts. The threshold is €5,404,000 for both works and services concessions.
Below the threshold, national rules apply
A contract below the threshold falls under national law. Those rules must still respect the general principles of EU law. Above the threshold, the buyer must use one of the directive’s procedures, which are described in a guide to the types of public procurement procedure. The notice goes to the EU Publications Office, which publishes it within five days. Each step from notice to contract award is covered in a guide to how the public procurement process works.
Guides written before 2026 may still give €143,000. That was the threshold for central government authorities in 2024 and 2025. What counts is the date the call for competition is sent, not the date of the guide.
For the €200,000 assignment, the check takes three steps. Find out whether the buyer is on the Annex I list, add every option and renewal in the procurement documents, and compare the total with €140,000 or €216,000.
If the total is above the threshold, look for the notice under your CPV codes. A full list of CPV divisions shows which division your services belong to and how to read the eight digits. Watching only the narrowest codes is one of the CPV code mistakes that quietly hide public tenders.
Last fact-checked: 23 October 2026