design competitions architecture competitions eu procurement concours wettbewerb

Design competitions in Europe: how they work, country by country

Q: Do architects get paid for competition entries?

It depends on the country and format. In a French concours, every compliant entrant receives a prime of at least 80% of the estimated price of the work requested. German, Austrian and Swiss rules set minimum prize funds shared among prize-winners. Elsewhere the rules set the amounts in advance.

Q: Is a design competition compulsory for public buildings?

Sometimes. France requires a restricted concours for new public buildings at or above the EU thresholds, with exceptions, including since February 2026 an exemption for local authorities below €300,000. Poland, Slovenia and Greece also require competitions for certain projects, and Spain directs buyers to them for complex ones. Germany requires public clients to consider one and record the decision.

TenderDesk · 29 Oct 2026 · 24 min read

Design competitions in Europe: how they work, country by country

How public design competitions work in Europe: the EU rules on anonymity, juries and the award to the winner, the national systems from France to the Nordics, prizes and copyright, and where to find competitions in official sources.

A design competition is a procedure in which a public client buys a plan or design chosen by a jury from anonymous entries, usually with prizes, and often with the follow-on design contract negotiated with the winner without a new tender. EU law sets a short common core in Articles 78 to 82 of Directive 2014/24/EU. Each country adds its own rulebook and vocabulary: the French concours de maîtrise d'œuvre, the German and Austrian Wettbewerb, the Dutch prijsvraag, the Italian concorso di progettazione, the Spanish concurso de proyectos, the Portuguese concurso de conceção, the Swiss SIA 142 competition, and their equivalents from the Nordic countries to the Balkans.

This guide explains the shared EU rules, the formats, the main national systems, prizes and copyright, what to read before you enter, how juries judge, what happens after a win, and where to find competitions in official sources. Figures and article numbers are those in force in October 2026.

Key points

Under EU law a design contest lets a public buyer acquire "a plan or design selected by a jury", with or without prizes, either as the first step towards a service contract or as a contest with prizes only.
Design contests use the services thresholds: for 2026–2027, €140,000 for central government and €216,000 for other public buyers, net of VAT. Prizes, payments and the announced follow-on contract all count.
Entries are anonymous until the jury has decided. Jurors must be independent of the entrants, and where a qualification is required to enter, at least a third must hold it. Spain and Hungary ask for two thirds; Germany, Austria and Switzerland for a majority of professionals.
The buyer may negotiate the service contract with the winner, or with all winners, without a new call (Article 32(4)), but only if the contest notice said so.
France makes a restricted concours compulsory for new public buildings above the EU thresholds, with exceptions; since February 2026 local authorities may skip it below €300,000. Poland, Slovenia, Spain and Greece also push public clients towards competitions for certain projects.
Payment varies widely: a French prime pays every compliant entrant at least 80% of the estimated cost of the work asked for; German, Austrian and Swiss rules set minimum prize funds shared among the best; many open competitions pay only the prizes.
Copyright normally stays with the author, but the rules decide what the buyer may do with your design. In Italy, paying the prize transfers ownership of the winning design.
Official sources are enough: TED's design contest notices, the national portals, and the competition pages of chambers and architects' associations.

What the EU calls a design contest

Two kinds of contest

Article 2(1)(21) of Directive 2014/24/EU defines design contests as procedures that enable a buyer to acquire, "mainly in the fields of town and country planning, architecture and engineering or data processing", a plan or design selected by a jury after being put out to competition, with or without prizes. Article 78 covers two cases:

A contest organised as part of a procedure leading to a public service contract. The contest selects the design; the contract to develop it follows. The threshold test uses the estimated value of the service contract, including prizes or payments.
A contest with prizes or payments to participants. The test uses the total of the prizes and payments, plus the estimated value of a follow-on service contract if the contest notice announced one.

The second case covers ideas competitions, where the buyer wants a concept or a masterplan and promises no commission. The first covers what most countries call a realisation or project competition.

Thresholds and notices

Under Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2152, from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2027 the thresholds for design contests are €140,000 for central government authorities and €216,000 for regions, municipalities and most other public bodies, net of VAT. Because the follow-on fee counts, almost every competition for a public building of any size is above them.

Article 79 requires a contest notice before the contest and a results notice after it. Since October 2023 these are eForms, with their own notice types on TED: the "design contest notice" (subtypes 23 and 24) and the "design contest result notice" (subtypes 36 and 37). The contest notice must say whether a service contract will follow.

Who may enter

Article 80 forbids limiting participation to the territory, or part of the territory, of a member state, and forbids requiring entrants to be either natural or legal persons. A sole practitioner from any member state may enter as well as a company. Where the buyer limits the number of participants, it must use "clear and non-discriminatory" selection criteria and invite enough candidates to ensure genuine competition. In practice that selection runs on references, team and capacity, like the first stage of a restricted tender.

The jury

Articles 81 and 82 hold the core of the procedure:

The jury is made up only of natural persons independent of the participants.
Where a particular professional qualification is required to enter, at least a third of the jury must hold it or an equivalent.
The jury is autonomous and examines the entries anonymously, solely on the criteria in the contest notice.
It records its ranking in a signed report, with remarks on each project and any points needing clarification.
Anonymity holds until the jury has reached its opinion or decision. Candidates may then be invited to answer questions recorded in the minutes, and the dialogue is minuted in full.

From contest to contract: Article 32(4)

Article 32(4) allows the negotiated procedure without prior publication for a service contract that follows a design contest and "is to be awarded, under the rules provided for in the design contest, to the winner or one of the winners". If there are several winners, all must be invited to negotiate. This is how a competition win becomes a commission without a second tender, and it works only if the contest rules provided for it. A competition presented as leading to a commission should say so in plain words.

Formats: ideas or project, open or restricted, one or two stages

The directive leaves the format to buyers and national rules. The same choices appear everywhere under different names.

Choice	Options	What it means for you
Purpose	Ideas competition, or project (realisation) competition	Ideas: prizes, no commission promised. Project: the winner is meant to receive the design contract.
Entry	Open	Anyone qualified may submit. Many entries and low odds, but no reference barrier.
	Restricted	Teams are selected on references and capacity; only they submit designs.
	Invited	The client names the teams. Allowed for private clients, and for public ones generally only below the EU thresholds.
Stages	One or two	In two stages, a light first round narrows the field and a shortlist develops its proposal; anonymity normally runs through both.

Close relatives are not design contests under the directive: the Swiss study commission under SIA 143, the German Mehrfachbeauftragung and the Norwegian parallelloppdrag, in which several paid teams develop proposals, often in dialogue with the client and without anonymity.

The practical difference: an open anonymous competition is the one procedure in which a practice without matching references can win a large public building on the design alone. A restricted competition gives better odds but brings the reference barrier back at selection, so score it like a tender (see the go/no-go guide).

The main national systems

France: the concours de maîtrise d'œuvre

In France competitions are a legal obligation. Article R2172-2 of the Code de la commande publique requires the public clients covered by Book IV of the code (the State, its public bodies, local authorities and other public building owners) to award building design contracts at or above the formalised-procedure thresholds through a concours restreint, followed by negotiation with the winner or winners. The exceptions are the reuse or refurbishment of existing buildings and urban or landscape projects; research and experimental buildings; infrastructure; contracts with no design task; buildings of social housing bodies, approved mixed-economy companies and the CROUS; and, since Décret 2026-117 of 20 February 2026, contracts of local authorities, their public bodies and groupings below €300,000 net. The State is not covered by that last exemption.

Teams apply with references and team composition; after the jury's opinion the buyer admits a limited number. The government's public-building quality guide (MIQCP) notes that three has proved its worth as a minimum, with four or five for a wider choice. The level is set in the notice, usually an esquisse or esquisse plus, sometimes an outline design (APS). The jury is independent of the participants, at least a third hold the required qualification, and for local authorities the elected members of the tender committee sit on it. Anonymity is lifted only after the jury has signed its minutes; it may then put written questions to the candidates but may not change its ranking. Every entrant whose submission complies receives a prime equal to the estimated price of the studies requested, reduced by at most 20% (Article R2172-4), and the winner's fee takes it into account. See the France page.

Germany: the Planungswettbewerb under RPW 2013

Sections 78 to 80 of the Vergabeverordnung (VgV) frame German competitions, which run under the Richtlinie für Planungswettbewerbe (RPW 2013), binding for federal projects and widely used by states and municipalities; each state chamber of architects registers the competitions that comply. Public clients must examine and document whether to hold a competition for building, urban, landscape and bridge projects.

The RPW distinguishes the Realisierungswettbewerb from the Ideenwettbewerb, and the offener from the nichtoffener Wettbewerb, in which participants are selected on non-discriminatory criteria, with a lottery when too many qualify; two-phase procedures are allowed. The jury has an odd number of members and a majority of Fachpreisrichter with the participants' qualification, most of them independent of the client. The prize fund "as a rule" equals at least the fee for the preliminary design (Vorplanung) and must be paid out in full. The client commits to commission a prize-winner, as a rule the first, unless there is an important reason not to, normally at least up to completed construction documents (Ausführungsplanung). The Germany guide explains how this sits beside the far more common VgV negotiated procedure.

Austria: the Wettbewerbsstandard Architektur

Austria's Bundesvergabegesetz 2018 defines the Ideenwettbewerb and the Realisierungswettbewerb, the latter followed by a negotiated procedure for the service contract, in open, non-open and invited forms. The chamber of architects and engineers publishes the Wettbewerbsstandard Architektur (WSA 2010, re-edited in 2022). It treats the open competition as the standard and allows invited competitions for public clients only below the EU thresholds. The jury has at least five members, an odd number, with professionals holding a majority of votes; in a competition run "in cooperation" the chamber nominates at least a quarter of them. There must be at least three prizes, staggered roughly 1 : 0.8 : 0.6, and, unlike in Germany, prize money is not set off against the later fee. Cooperation competitions are published on architekturwettbewerb.at. See the Austria page.

Switzerland: SIA 142 and SIA 143

Swiss competitions combine the federal and cantonal procurement rules with the professional rules of the Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects: SIA 142 for competitions, SIA 143 for study commissions. The concours de projets (Projektwettbewerb) is anonymous, in one or two stages, judged by a jury with a majority of professionals of whom at least half are independent of the client, and carries a compulsory prize fund on the SIA scale. The ideas competition is also anonymous and usually leads to no contract. The parallel study commission under SIA 143 is usually not anonymous, and its teams receive identical compensation: about 80% of the estimated cost of the work if a follow-on mandate is planned, 100% if not. The client may award the follow-on contract directly to the winner only if the programme announced it and the jury was independent. Notices are on simap.ch; see the Switzerland page.

The Netherlands and Belgium

Dutch law calls a design contest a prijsvraag and sets its procedure in sections 2.157 to 2.163 of the Aanbestedingswet 2012, following the directive. Most Dutch public architects, however, are appointed through an architectenselectie, a restricted tender in which a shortlist presents a vision or a sketch, supported by Architectuur Lokaal's KOMPAS light guide. Notices are on TenderNed; see the Netherlands page.

In Flanders, the Open Oproep of the Flemish Government Architect is the closest thing to a regional competition system: a public call, a shortlist per project and paid design proposals. Open Call 51 drew 259 applications for six projects in 2026, with four teams shortlisted per project. See the Belgium page.

Italy: the concorso di progettazione

Article 46 of Legislative Decree 36/2023 applies the directive's design contest rules. For public works a competition normally runs in one stage at the level of the technical and economic feasibility project (PFTE); two stages need an adequate justification. Paying the prize transfers ownership of the winning design to the buyer. The notice may provide for the executive design to be awarded to the winner by negotiated procedure without publication, if the winner meets the requirements the notice sets, which in practice means assembling a qualified team before you enter.

The single-stage rule became contentious in 2026. In opinion no. 19/2026 of 17 June 2026, the anti-corruption authority ANAC held that every competitor, not only the winner, must deliver a full PFTE, and the National Council of Architects (CNAPPC) asked for an urgent amendment of the code. Check what each notice asks you to produce. See the Italy page.

Spain: the concurso de proyectos

Articles 183 to 187 of the public sector contracts law (Ley 9/2017, LCSP) govern the concurso de proyectos, both within a service-contract procedure, which may include site supervision, and with prizes or payments only. The law directs buyers to competitions for architecture, urban planning and engineering projects of special complexity, and the 2022 architectural quality law (Ley 9/2022) lists the technical, environmental, landscape, functional and urban conditions that can make a project complex. The rules (bases) must state the amount of any prizes. A limited competition may not invite fewer than three participants. Where a professional qualification is required, at least two thirds of the jury must hold it, double the EU minimum. See the Spain page.

Portugal: the concurso de conceção

The Código dos Contratos Públicos regulates the concurso de conceção from Article 219.º-A. A typical public competition is published in the Diário da República and on TED, run on an electronic platform such as acinGov, judged anonymously by a jury whose ranking binds the buyer, and followed by a direct award (ajuste direto) of the design services to the winner under Article 27.º(1)(g). The Ordem dos Arquitectos often acts as technical adviser; in one municipal competition it advised on, the prize fund was €28,000, with €12,000 for the winner and smaller prizes down to fifth place. Competitions remain rare: the Ordem counted 44 among 2,272 public design procedures between July 2023 and June 2025. See the Portugal page.

Central and Eastern Europe

Poland. The 2019 procurement law (Pzp) regulates the konkurs, open or limited, in one or two stages, with anonymous entries and a jury of at least three, a third of whom, including the chair, hold the required qualification where one is needed. Above the EU thresholds, an architectural design contract that would be tendered by open or restricted procedure must be preceded by a konkurs, except for linear infrastructure. Many are run with SARP, the architects' association. See Poland.
Czechia and Slovakia. The Czech soutěž o návrh (Act 134/2016 Coll.) and the Slovak súťaž návrhov (Act 343/2015 Coll.) are often reviewed by the national chambers, which confirm the competitions that meet their rules and publish them. See Czechia and Slovakia.
Hungary. The tervpályázat follows Government Decree 310/2015: the Chamber of Architects publishes the call and sits on the jury, and at least two thirds of the jury must hold the competitors' qualification. See Hungary.
Slovenia, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria. Slovenia's ZJN-3 makes a public design competition compulsory for new public buildings above a set investment value, and the chamber (ZAPS) organises many. Croatian competitions follow the chamber's rules agreed with the architects' association (UHA). Romania's concurs de soluții is organised or endorsed by the Order of Architects (OAR), and Bulgaria's chamber (KAB) co-organises some конкурс за проект with municipalities. See Slovenia, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria.

Southern Europe and the islands

A 2024 framework of the Greek Ministry of Environment and Energy makes a competition the rule for notable public buildings, with juries of five, seven or nine, mostly architects largely drawn by lot from a ministry list (Greece). Cypriot competitions follow the regulations of the technical chamber (ETEK), with a majority of architects on the jury and the first prize normally commissioned (Cyprus). Malta's Kamra tal-Periti offers to run competitions for public buyers and can declare one off-limits to its members when it falls short (Malta).

The Nordic and Baltic countries

Professional associations shape the competitions here. The Danish Association of Architects appoints professional jurors (fagdommere) for projektkonkurrencer (Denmark). Norway's plan- og designkonkurranser are open or restricted to usually four to six teams, with advice from the NAL competition secretariat (Norway). A Swedish projekttävling arranged with Sveriges Arkitekter usually has two jurors appointed by the association (Sweden). SAFA advises Finnish organisers and appoints impartial professional jurors (Finland), and the Icelandic association nominates jury members (Iceland). The Estonian association often co-organises competitions under its guide; the Latvian association publicises only the competitions that meet its guidelines; and the Lithuanian Chamber of Architects approves each competition's conditions, with a jury of at least five, at least half certified architects or academics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania).

Ireland, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein

Ireland's RIAI runs a competition service and expects anonymous entries and a commission for the winner (Ireland). The UK's Procurement Act 2023 has no separate design contest procedure and no direct-award ground for a competition winner, so public buyers who want a competition build it into the competitive flexible procedure; RIBA Competitions runs design competitions on clients' behalf, mostly for private clients (United Kingdom; see also the UK guide). Luxembourg's ministries and communes publish their concours d'architecture on the national procurement portal (Luxembourg), and Liechtenstein's procurement act provides a Planungswettbewerb where a project or concept is the main aim (Liechtenstein).

Prizes, honoraria and what you are paid

The directive says nothing about amounts. Three models cover most of Europe:

Every shortlisted team is paid. France's prime, Swiss study commissions and Flemish Open Call design fees pay all teams that deliver, whatever their rank. The MIQCP guide puts an esquisse at roughly 4–6% of the basic design fee and an esquisse plus at 6–8%, a useful check on whether a prime is realistic.
A prize fund shared among the best. Germany (at least the preliminary-design fee), Austria (at least three staggered prizes) and Switzerland (the SIA scale) set minimum funds, but most entrants in an open competition receive nothing. Ideas competitions usually pay more because no commission follows: up to four times a realisation competition's fund under the Austrian standard, roughly three times the estimated cost of one entry under the Swiss guide.
Prizes set case by case. Spain, Portugal, Italy, Poland and most other countries leave the amount to the rules, which must state it in advance.

Two details change the numbers. Is the prize set off against the later fee? In Germany it is, up to the prize amount, if the design goes ahead largely unchanged; in France the winner's fee takes the prime into account; in Austria it is not set off. And does a reduced commission trigger compensation? Under SIA 142, a winner offered only part of the services can claim more.

Copyright and intellectual property

The author of a design keeps the moral right to be named and to object to distortion; what varies is who may use the design. Read the rights clause before you enter.

Italy: paying the prize transfers ownership of the winning design to the buyer, and winning ideas become its property.
Germany (RPW 2013): the client may publish all entries; a design may be used for its purpose only if its author receives the commission; otherwise copyright stays with the authors, and unused protected parts must be paid for if used later.
Austria (WSA): the client must state the usage rights it wants; in an ideas competition it secures an option on use, which the prize money alone does not pay for.
Poland: the buyer may not share entries that won nothing.

Warning signs: an assignment of rights over every entrant's design, not just the winner's; a right to build the winning scheme with another architect without paying for the use; and broad "exploitation" rights with no fee where the commission may not follow. Chambers flag such competitions, and some advise members not to enter.

What to check in the rules before you enter

The notice is short; the rules (règlement, Auslobung, bando, bases, programa) hold the answers. Check:

Purpose and promise. Ideas or realisation? Does the notice announce a follow-on contract, for which services? "Further commissioning is intended" is weaker than "the client will commission the winner with phases 2 to 8".
Qualification and team. Who must be qualified, whether engineers must be named at entry, and what suitability criteria (turnover, insurance, references) the winner must meet before the contract.
Deliverables. Boards, model, cost estimate, area schedule, energy or carbon calculations. Each adds cost; in Italy, possibly a full PFTE.
The jury. How many architects, who nominated them, how many sit for the client.
Prizes and payments. Amounts, number of prizes, payments to all entrants, set-off against the fee.
Rights, as above.
Timetable, language and platform. Question deadline, submission, jury date, results; the language required for every document; registration on the named e-procurement platform.
The chamber's view. A competition registered with a German state chamber, run "in cooperation" in Austria or confirmed by the Czech, Slovak or Lithuanian chamber has passed a professional review.

The cost of entering and the go/no-go decision

A competition is the most expensive bid a practice makes, because the deliverable is design itself: concept, drawings, images, often a model, a cost estimate and the engineers' input, mostly in senior time.

Worked example (illustrative assumptions, not official data). A French concours restreint for a €6 million school, with a basic design fee of about €720,000 (12% of works). At the MIQCP's 6–8% for an esquisse plus, the estimated price of the work is €43,000 to €58,000, so the prime at the maximum 20% discount is €35,000 to €46,000 per team. If your entry takes 400 hours at €90 an hour plus €6,000 for images and engineers (€42,000 in all), the prime covers most or all of it, and with three or four teams your chance of winning is 25–33%. The same effort in an open competition with 80 entries and no payment to non-winners costs the full €42,000 for about a 1-in-80 chance of first place. Those are different decisions.

Use the same tools as for a tender, a pass/fail check, a weighted score and a break-even win rate, as set out in the go/no-go guide. For competitions, also:

Count paid stages as income. A prime or a study-commission fee turns a shortlist place into partly paid work.
Budget reputation entries. An open competition can give a young practice the first reference it cannot get through restricted tenders; in Germany a prize counts as a reference. Set a yearly budget for these and stop when it is spent.
Prefer two-stage open competitions. The first stage costs a fraction of a full entry.
Team before you commit. Where the winner must meet suitability criteria or deliver engineering, choose partners at the start; see lead firm, consortium or subcontracting.

How juries judge, and how to present

A pre-examination by the client's technical team first checks each entry against the brief: deliverables, area schedule, budget, planning constraints. The jury then eliminates entries in rounds, discusses the last few in depth and ranks them against the criteria in the notice, which are usually short and qualitative: the architectural and urban idea, function, economy of construction and operation, sustainability.

Make the idea readable in seconds. In the first round jurors give each entry a minute or two. One clear diagram and one image at the top of the first board do more than ten renderings.
Answer the brief before going beyond it. Entries that miss areas, access or the budget are dropped before architecture is discussed. A clear area table and a cost estimate in the required format earn trust.
Respect the format exactly: number of boards, scale, file size, naming.
Protect anonymity. No logo, no recognisable graphic signature, no names in file metadata. A breach can exclude the entry.
Write for a tired reader: short text in the jury's language, tied to the criteria.

The negotiation or interview that follows is a separate pitch; the pitch guide covers it.

What happens after you win

Results. The buyer publishes the results notice, on TED above the thresholds, and many rules provide for an exhibition of all entries with the authors' names.
Suitability check. Where the rules set suitability criteria for the follow-on contract, the winner proves them now. A winner who fails them can be passed over.
Negotiation without a new call. The winner, or all winners, negotiate the service contract under Article 32(4): fee, scope, programme and team, not the design. The fee proposal guide covers national fee references such as Germany's HOAI and Italy's parametri.
Scope. Under RPW the commission normally runs to construction documents and under SIA 142 to the full scope; in Italy the notice may cover only the executive design.
If negotiations fail. Lithuania and, where the rules allow, Poland let the buyer turn to the next-placed entry; in Germany the client needs an important reason not to commission a prize-winner.
Local delivery. A foreign winner usually needs a locally registered architect for the permit and site phases, or its own registration as a visiting professional. Agree the partnership before you enter.

Where to find competitions: official sources

Everything is published by public bodies or professional chambers.

TED carries every design contest above the EU thresholds. Filter by notice type "design contest notice", and read the "design contest result notices" to see who wins, where and for what prize. A search on architecture CPV codes alone can miss contests.
National portals carry competitions below the thresholds and the documents above them: BOAMP and buyer profiles in France, the federal and state platforms in Germany, simap.ch, TenderNed, the Diário da República and BASE in Portugal, the Spanish public sector contracts platform, e-Zamówienia in Poland, and the others listed on TenderDesk's country pages, such as Czechia or Finland.
Chambers and associations publish the competitions they review, register or run: the German state chambers; architekturwettbewerb.at in Austria; the Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Slovenian and Lithuanian chambers; SARP; the Ordem dos Arquitectos; Spain's regional colegios de arquitectos; the CNAPPC's free competition platform in Italy; the Flemish Government Architect; TEE and SADAS-PEA in Greece; ETEK; the Kamra tal-Periti; the Nordic and Baltic architects' associations; the RIAI; and RIBA Competitions.

TenderDesk's feed gathers TED and national sources, including design contest notices, and scores them for design content, so a competition in a country you do not watch daily still reaches you; when it asks for engineers or a local partner, you can find one in the same workspace.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a design contest and a tender?

A design contest selects a design: a jury judges anonymous entries on the criteria in the notice. A tender selects a firm on references, team, method and fee. Under EU law a contest can be followed by a negotiated award of the design contract to the winner without a new tender, if the contest notice announced it (Article 32(4) of Directive 2014/24/EU).

Does the winner of a design competition always get the commission?

No. Ideas competitions promise none. In a realisation competition the buyer may award the contract to the winner only if the rules said so, and the winner must usually meet the suitability criteria. Germany's RPW requires a prize-winner to be commissioned unless there is an important reason not to; Lithuania and Poland let the buyer turn to the next-placed entry if negotiations fail.

Do architects get paid for competition entries?

It depends on the country and format. In a French concours, every compliant entrant receives a prime of at least 80% of the estimated price of the work requested. German, Austrian and Swiss rules set minimum prize funds shared among prize-winners. Elsewhere the rules set the amounts in advance.

Is a design competition compulsory for public buildings?

Sometimes. France requires a restricted concours for new public buildings at or above the EU thresholds, with exceptions, including since February 2026 an exemption for local authorities below €300,000. Poland, Slovenia and Greece also require competitions for certain projects, and Spain directs buyers to them for complex ones. Germany requires public clients to consider one and record the decision.

Can a foreign practice enter a competition in another EU country?

Yes. The directive forbids limiting participation by territory. The practical barriers are language, registration for delivery and, in restricted competitions, references. Most foreign winners deliver with a local architect for the permit and site phases.