portugal codigo dos contratos publicos concurso de conceção ordem dos arquitectos cross-border bidding

Architecture tenders in Portugal: where to find them and how they work

TenderDesk · 29 Oct 2026 · 24 min read

Portugal commissions thousands of small public design contracts, and since 1 October 2026 most of them can be bought by invitation. This guide explains the revised Código dos Contratos Públicos, the concurso de conceção, where notices and bids live, Ordem dos Arquitectos registration, fees and the post-PRR pipeline.

Portugal buys a lot of architecture, in small pieces. The Ordem dos Arquitectos counted 2,272 public procedures for design services in the two years to June 2025, more than half of them by invitation, and only 44 design competitions. Most commissions are small, most are decided partly or wholly on price, and on 1 October 2026 the rules changed: a revised Código dos Contratos Públicos raised the limits for direct awards and invited consultations so far that much of the design market will now be bought without any public notice. At the same time the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) has ended and national programmes for schools and housing are taking over.

This guide explains how the system works in October 2026, for a Portuguese practice and for a foreign one: the law and its 2026 revision, the procedures and thresholds, the concurso de conceção, where notices and bids live, who may sign a project, price and award criteria, language and paperwork, deadlines and remedies, and the pipeline. The sources at the end let you check every figure.

Key points

Public contracts are governed by the Código dos Contratos Públicos (CCP), Decreto-Lei 18/2008, revised by Decreto-Lei 177/2026 of 4 September 2026 for procedures started on or after 1 October 2026.
For services, including architecture, direct award (ajuste direto) is now possible below €75,000 and invited consultation (consulta prévia) below €130,000, net of VAT; the old limits were €20,000 and €75,000. For works they are €150,000 and €1,000,000.
Above the EU thresholds (€216,000 for most buyers, €140,000 for central government, €5,404,000 for works in 2026 and 2027) procedures are also advertised in the Official Journal of the EU.
The concurso de conceção (design contest) is anonymous, judged by a jury whose ranking binds the client, and leads to a direct award of the design contract to the selected entrant under article 27.º(1)(g). It is rare: 44 of 2,272 procedures in two years.
Notices appear in Part II of the Diário da República ("Parte L – Contratos públicos") and on the BASE portal, which also publishes every contract. Documents and bids live on licensed electronic platforms such as acinGov and Vortal, signed with a qualified electronic signature.
Architecture projects must be authored by an architect registered with the Ordem dos Arquitectos (OA). An EU or EEA architect can register or file a prior declaration for occasional services.
Proposals are in Portuguese; foreign documents need a translation.
Price weighs heavily: in the Lisbon region only one procedure in ten did not score price, and nationally signed fees averaged 65 percent of the base price.
The standstill is 10 days after notification of the award where it applies; a judicial challenge must be filed within one month.
After the PRR, the main sources of new public design work are the school renovation programme financed by the European Investment Bank (451 schools) and the 1.º Direito housing programme.

The legal map

Portuguese procurement law sits in one code. The CCP, approved by Decreto-Lei 18/2008, covers both the award of contracts and their performance, for the State, municipalities, public companies and the other bodies it lists. Its 2017 revision (Decreto-Lei 111-B/2017) transposed the 2014 EU directives and created today's design-contest chapter. The official consolidated text is on the Diário da República's website.

Four other texts matter to an architect. Lei 31/2009 sets who may author and coordinate a project and requires liability insurance. Portaria 255/2023, which replaced Portaria 701-H/2008, sets the content of each design phase for public works, from programa preliminar and programa base through estudo prévio and anteprojeto to projeto de execução. Lei 96/2015 regulates the electronic platforms. The Estatuto da Ordem dos Arquitectos, last amended by Lei 12/2024, regulates the profession.

Three waves of change came in five years. Lei 30/2021 introduced "special measures" to spend the PRR quickly, above all an invited consultation of at least five firms up to the EU thresholds for projects financed by European funds, housing and other priorities. Decreto-Lei 78/2022 widened the use of conceção-construção (design and build), and Decreto-Lei 112/2025 made it a general option for any works contract. Then came Decreto-Lei 177/2026, in force on 1 October 2026. It raised the thresholds, repealed the Lei 30/2021 procedures and moved the simplified consultation into the code as a permanent consulta prévia especial, created a flexible open procedure below the EU thresholds, made the base price optional, abolished the Annex I declaration that accompanied every bid, required authorities to fetch qualification documents themselves where they can, and wrote digital tools, including AI, into the code with a duty of human oversight. The core design-contest rules on the jury, anonymity, selection and prizes kept their 2017 wording.

The revision's rules on contract modification and dispute resolution also apply to procedures already under way; everything else applies only to procedures started from 1 October 2026, so both regimes will appear in notices into 2027.

Thresholds and the choice of procedure

The authority chooses the procedure by the estimated value of the contract or, regardless of value, on material grounds listed in the code. Since October 2026 the estimated value is the price the authority expects to pay, net of VAT (article 17.º), with anti-splitting rules in article 17.º-B. For a design contract that is the fee for all phases, not the construction budget.

Procedure	Services (incl. design)	Works	Publicity
Ajuste direto (direct award)	below €75,000	below €150,000	none; contract published on BASE
Consulta prévia (at least three firms invited)	below €130,000	below €1,000,000	none; contract published on BASE
Consulta prévia especial (at least five firms, specific purposes)	below the EU threshold and €2,000,000	below the EU threshold and €2,000,000	none; contract published on BASE
Concurso público or limitado, national notice	below €216,000 (€140,000 central government)	below €5,404,000	Diário da República and BASE
Concurso público or limitado, EU notice	from €216,000 (€140,000 central government)	from €5,404,000	Diário da República, BASE and TED

The EU thresholds are those set for 2026 and 2027 by Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2152. Two consequences follow. First, a design fee below €130,000 can now be commissioned by inviting three firms of the authority's choosing. Before the revision the average invited consultation was worth about €41,000; the new limit moves into the invitation-only world a band of commissions, schools, health centres and housing blocks of a few million euros of construction, that used to be advertised. Second, the consulta prévia especial, which inherits the PRR regime, allows an invitation to five firms up to the EU threshold for contracts linked to European funds, public housing, health and the digital transition, which covers almost every design fee below €216,000 in those sectors.

There are limits. Under articles 113.º and 7.º, contracts awarded to the same firm by direct award or invited consultation in the current year and the two previous ones are added up against the threshold, including awards made before October 2026, and invited firms may not be specially related to each other. And the authority may always run an open procedure at any value, which many municipalities do for design services.

How each procedure works for design services

The concurso público (open procedure) is the workhorse above the invitation limits: 643 of the OA's 2,272 procedures. Any firm downloads the documents from the platform in the notice and submits a proposal; the programa do procedimento sets the rules and the caderno de encargos the contract terms. There is no selection stage, so the procedure tests the proposal: price, often a methodology or work plan, sometimes the team, while the winner's qualification is checked afterwards. Below the EU thresholds an authority may now use a flexible version (articles 161.º-A to 161.º-E), with minimum technical requirements, phased evaluation that drops proposals below a technical score, an electronic auction or a negotiation round, announced in advance. In that version the periods for comments on the preliminary report and for administrative challenges can be cut to three days.

The concurso limitado por prévia qualificação (restricted procedure) adds a qualification stage: firms apply with evidence of technical and financial capacity, and those that qualify are invited to bid. It is the nearest equivalent of the reference-based shortlists common in Germany or France, and rare for design: 29 procedures in two years.

The consulta prévia is now the procedure for most design commissions below €130,000: at least three firms invited, an invitation and specifications, and negotiation if the invitation allows it. The ajuste direto goes to one firm, below €75,000 or at any value on material grounds such as the follow-on to a design contest. Neither has a notice; both are published on BASE once signed, which makes BASE the best map of who commissions what from whom.

The empreitada de conceção-construção (design and build) is a works contract in which the contractor also prepares the design. It has spread fast: the OA's Lisbon section counted 2 such procedures in its region in 2020 to 2022 and 98 in 2023 to 2025, and the national sample had 194 in two years. The documents must contain a preliminary programme and the estimated value must separate design from construction. For an architect it is a different route: you bid inside a contractor's team, usually as its subcontractor, and the client never chooses the architecture separately. The OA opposes the trend and recommends design contests instead.

The concurso de conceção

The design contest is regulated in articles 219.º-A to 219.º-J of the CCP. It may be a concurso público de conceção, open to all; a concurso limitado por prévia qualificação, in which the jury first qualifies candidates against minimum technical capacity requirements and then invites them to submit designs; a concurso de conceção simplificado, which follows the formalities its terms of reference set; or a concurso de ideias, which buys ideas for a prize, gives at least 60 days to submit and transfers the chosen ideas to the client.

The rules that make it a competition on quality are short:

Anonymity. Entries must not identify their authors directly or indirectly (article 219.º-F). Identities are revealed only after the jury has signed its reasoned report ranking the works.
Jury. At least three members, an odd number, plus two substitutes; where a professional qualification is required, at least a third of the jury must hold it (article 219.º-E). The OA recommends a majority of architects and more external than internal members.
Binding ranking. The jury's rankings and exclusions bind the client and cannot be changed once identities are known.
Prizes and award. The selection decision awards the prizes (article 219.º-I), and the selected entrants count as selected for article 27.º(1)(g), which allows a direct award of the follow-on services contract at any value. Where a professional qualification is required, the winner has five days from notification to prove it, or the selection passes to the next ranked.

Two examples show the form. The municipality of Guarda launched a public contest for a new Centro Escolar in 2026, published in the Diário da República and the Official Journal of the EU, with technical assistance from the OA's Centro section: 120 days to submit, a jury of five, prizes of €12,000, €7,000, €5,000, €3,000 and €1,000, and criteria of design quality (40 percent), fit with the preliminary programme (30), materials and sustainability (20) and technical and financial feasibility (10). Cascais ran a contest in 2020 for a health unit with a €15,000 prize fund, 81 days, a three-member jury and criteria of architectural innovation (40), technical feasibility and sustainability (30), programme (20) and urban integration (10). Neither scored a fee: the price is agreed in the direct award that follows.

The terms of reference also set the team. Guarda required a coordinating architect registered with the OA for at least five years plus named engineering specialists; Cascais listed more than twenty disciplines. A foreign practice therefore needs its Portuguese engineering partners at the contest stage, not after winning.

Anonymity on an electronic platform takes care. In Guarda the design files had to be uploaded without digital signatures and without author information in file properties or metadata, in the platform's "classified" section, while the identification form and the signed submission were opened only after the jury's report. A name in a PDF's properties is an identifying mark.

A warning from Lisbon: in March 2026 the OA's Lisboa e Vale do Tejo section publicly criticised a municipal rehabilitation company that had excluded contest entries because the same specialist appeared in more than one design team. Until the point is settled, do not share an engineer or consultant with another team in the same contest.

Where notices are published and where bids live

Every open or restricted procedure, negotiation, competitive dialogue and design contest is announced in Part II of the Diário da República, in "Parte L – Contratos públicos", free to read on diariodarepublica.pt. The notice gives the object, the CPV code, any base price, the deadline, the award criterion and the platform's address. The notice is then sent to BASE (base.gov.pt), the public contracts portal run by IMPIC, the Instituto dos Mercados Públicos, do Imobiliário e da Construção, which also publishes every contract concluded, including direct awards and invited consultations, with price and winner. Procedures above the EU thresholds also appear in TED.

Documents and bids are on an electronic procurement platform the authority chooses from those licensed by IMPIC under Lei 96/2015. acinGov and Vortal are two of them: the Guarda and Cascais contests ran on acinGov, and the central-government notice cited in the sources on Vortal. Basic registration is free and covers the whole procedure, but platforms may charge for extra users, advanced services and, in some cases, the time stamps that fix the moment of submission. Register well before a deadline.

Documents submitted must carry a qualified electronic signature (Lei 96/2015, article 54.º) of the company or its legal representatives, and the signer must be able to bind the company. If your articles require two managers to sign, the bid needs both signatures or a power of attorney; Portuguese administrative courts have heard challenges on exactly this point. A qualified certificate issued anywhere in the EU under the eIDAS regulation is valid, but test it on the platform before the deadline week.

TenderDesk's Portugal feed reads BASE and TED and scores each notice for design content, which helps because architecture CPV codes are mixed with surveying, supervision and engineering; the Portugal page lists what is open. Invited consultations and direct awards never appear as notices; you see them on BASE only once signed.

Who may design: the Ordem dos Arquitectos

Lei 31/2009 says that architecture projects "are drawn up by architects with valid registration in the Ordem dos Arquitectos" (article 10.º). Engineering projects are signed by engineers recognised by the Ordem dos Engenheiros or the Ordem dos Engenheiros Técnicos. A project coordinator with the qualification of one of the authors coordinates the team. Every author must carry civil liability insurance; architects from another EEA state working temporarily may rely on equivalent home-state cover.

Tender documents follow the law. The Guarda and Cascais contests admitted architects and companies registered with the OA, companies whose objects include architecture, groups of these, and architects and practices from other EU or EEA states under the rules for establishment or temporary services. Qualification is checked when the winner presents its documents, which is why the five-day window after selection catches the unprepared.

The OA offers three routes to a foreign architect, under Lei 9/2009, which transposes the Professional Qualifications Directive:

Establishment for an EU or EEA national whose qualification is recognised, with proof of home registration and of residence in Portugal: €50 for assessment and €450 for registration, decided within 30 days.
Free provision of services for an architect established in another member state working in Portugal occasionally: a prior declaration with proof of nationality, qualification and home registration, and a professional qualification certificate for €60, valid for one year, validated within 30 days.
Third-country nationals register through reciprocity or through recognition of their degree followed by the OA's 12-month internship.

For most foreign practices the second route, or a Portuguese partner who signs, is the answer. File the declaration before you bid: it can take 30 days, and a contest winner has five.

The regional sections and their competition work

The OA has seven regional sections: Norte, Centro, Lisboa e Vale do Tejo, Alentejo, Algarve, Madeira and Açores. Their competition work matters to bidders in three ways.

They organise contests. The Lisboa e Vale do Tejo section's Serviço de Concursos prepares terms of reference with the promoter, proposes jurors from a pool of experienced members, handles questions and submissions, advises the jury, publishes results and the Cadernos de Concursos with the entries, and supports the direct award that follows. Its observatory found that 35 of the 38 design contests in its region in 2023 to 2025 had its assistance, and that assisted procedures set base prices of 5.8 percent of the works value against 4.9 percent without.

They monitor procedures. The same section reviewed 150 of its region's procedures in those three years, warning authorities of non-conformities. The Açores section reviewed a 2024 tender for the Lajes do Pico health centre design, criticising criteria that did not assess design, a demand for editable files and a reference to the revoked Portaria 701-H/2008, and recommending a design contest. These reviews are published and worth reading before you bid for the same client.

They publish contests and data. The OA's website lists the contests it assists, and its national reports on public fees are the best source on what Portuguese commissions are worth.

Price: base price, estimated value and abnormally low bids

Until October 2026 every procedure had to state a preço base, the maximum the authority would pay. Now the estimated value remains mandatory and must rest on objective criteria such as market prices or comparable contracts, but the base price is optional; when set, it is still a ceiling. Without one, a bid above the estimated value is not excluded automatically, and the authority must give objective reasons if it refuses to award.

There are no official fee scales. Portaria 701-H/2008 defined the design phases but fixed no fees, and Portaria 255/2023 defines the content of each phase, not its price. The OA does not want a mandatory reference value; it asks for official reference frameworks instead.

Measure (OA, July 2023 to June 2025)	Value
Base price as share of works cost, open, restricted and design-contest procedures	3.45%
Base price as share of works cost, design and build	3.21%
Signed fee as share of works cost, open, restricted and design-contest procedures	2.23%
Signed fee as share of base price	64.8%
Contracts signed below half the base price	30% (51 of 168)
Average value of an invited consultation	€40,924

The abnormally low price rule (article 71.º) has no automatic percentage. The documents may define in advance when a price is abnormally low; if they do not, the authority may still identify one by reasoned decision. Either way it must ask the bidder to explain the price before deciding, and exclusion follows only if the explanation fails. Many authorities set no threshold, which is how 30 percent of contracts end below half the base price. Price from your own hours, not from the base price, and be ready to justify a low fee or to lose to one.

Fees are usually split by the phases of Portaria 255/2023, with a share for technical assistance during construction, and paid on delivery of each phase. Read the caderno de encargos for the payment schedule and the penalties, capped at 20 percent of the contract price. TenderDesk's guide to pricing a fee proposal covers the method.

Award criteria

The CCP allows one criterion, the most economically advantageous tender, in two forms: a single factor, price or cost, or several factors combining quality and price, with weights, sub-factors and a scoring model published with the documents. As in the EU directive, the qualifications and experience of the staff assigned can be a factor where they materially affect performance, and since October 2026 the code names sustainability, circularity, innovation and cultural aspects among possible factors. An authority may also set a minimum overall score below which it will not award.

Practice is price-heavy. The Lisbon section's observatory found that only 40 of its region's procedures in three years, 10.6 percent, did not score price, and the OA's national report names price-only evaluation as its main concern. Design contests are the exception: Guarda and Cascais scored design quality, programme, sustainability and feasibility, with no price. In multi-factor open procedures, expect price alongside a methodology or work plan and, increasingly, the team's experience, with weights fixed in the programa do procedimento.

Language, documents and signatures

Article 58.º of the CCP requires proposal documents in Portuguese. The programme may admit named documents in another language, and documents that are by nature foreign, such as home-country certificates, must come with a translation; contest terms usually require a legalised translation that prevails over the original. Bids with untranslated documents can be excluded, so submit everything, captions and reports included, in Portuguese.

The paperwork has lightened. Since October 2026 submitting a bid is presumed to mean you have read the documents and have no impediment, authorities must obtain qualification documents from other public bodies where they can, and procedures with EU publicity keep the European Single Procurement Document (DEUCP) as provisional evidence. A foreign winner will still be asked for home-country equivalents of the tax, social-security and criminal-record certificates, translated, within a short deadline, five working days in the contests above. Prepare them before you bid; the guide to the ESPD and the admin pack lists what a pack contains.

Two details trip foreign firms. A group (agrupamento) bids without forming a company, but the proposal must be signed by every member or by a common representative holding a mandate from each. And VAT follows the building: the EU VAT Directive (article 47) taxes services connected with immovable property, which include architects' services, where the property is, so ask a Portuguese accountant before signing whether you need a Portuguese tax number.

Timelines, standstill and challenges

Statutory minimums are short. For an open procedure without EU publicity the code allows six days for bids (14 for works); with EU publicity, 30 days, reducible to 15 for urgency or after a prior information notice. In a restricted procedure with EU publicity, applications take at least 30 days and bids 25. Invitation procedures have no statutory minimum, but courts expect a reasonable period. Real design procedures are longer: the Lisbon observatory recommends at least 30 days for proposals and 60 for design work, and Cascais gave 81 days and Guarda 120. Questions are asked through the platform within the window the programme sets, and the answers become part of the documents.

After evaluation, the jury or committee issues a preliminary report and bidders have a prior hearing (audiência prévia) to comment, the moment to challenge the scoring of your bid or a competitor's. Where the procedure was advertised in the Official Journal, the contract cannot be signed until 10 days after notification of the award (article 104.º); the standstill does not apply to direct awards, invited consultations, procedures without EU publicity or single-bid procedures.

There are two remedies. An administrative challenge (impugnação administrativa) to the authority costs nothing and must be filed within five working days, or three in the flexible open procedure. A judicial challenge goes to the administrative courts under the urgent pre-contractual procedure within one month of notification; filed against an award in an EU-advertised procedure within the standstill, it suspends the award automatically, although the court can lift the suspension.

The pipeline after the PRR

Portugal's Recovery and Resilience Plan mobilised €21.9 billion, and its deadline for milestones was 31 August 2026. By the end of July the government reported 31,000 social and affordable homes, 18,000 student beds, 87 schools and 490 health units built or renovated with PRR money, and promised that works not finished would move to Portugal 2030, the European Investment Bank or the State Budget. Design for those buildings was mostly bought in 2021 to 2024. New design work comes from national programmes.

Schools. Under a 2023 agreement between the government and the association of municipalities, 451 school buildings were identified for renovation, with about €1 billion of EIB lending. A first call for 22 very urgent schools opened in September 2025, and a second for 237 urgent schools in 118 municipalities, worth €850 million, closed for applications on 30 June 2026. Works are expected from the second half of 2026, must finish within 48 months, and must be contracted by 31 December 2029. The municipalities are the clients; most will buy design through invited consultations, and a few, like Guarda, through contests.

Housing. The 1.º Direito programme totals €4.2 billion: €1.4 billion from the PRR for 26,000 homes and €2.8 billion from the State Budget for about 33,000 more that fell outside the PRR target, with 60 percent co-funding for homes completed by December 2030 once the full-funding budget is used. The government's Construir Portugal strategy aims at 59,000 public homes by 2030. Municipalities, their housing companies and urban rehabilitation companies are the clients, and the Lisbon observatory found that housing and education account for about 60 percent of its region's design procedures. Much of this will go out as design and build or under the consulta prévia especial, which was written for exactly these projects.

Health. The PRR financed primary health centres across the country; several in the Braga, Beja, Coimbra, Porto and Lisbon districts missed the deadline and are moving to other funding. Hospitals are fewer, larger and often engineering-led, and usually appear as EU-advertised open procedures or design and build.

The European market overview compares these figures with Spain, Italy and France.

A preparation plan for a foreign practice

First, decide how you will sign: file the OA prior declaration, or partner with a Portuguese practice whose registered architect can coordinate. A partner also brings language, local codes and the client relationships that invited consultations depend on. Second, assemble Portuguese engineers registered with their Ordem, a fire-safety specialist and the other disciplines briefs list, each insured; see the guides on choosing an engineering partner and on lead firm or consortium.

Third, prepare the infrastructure: qualified signatures for everyone who binds the firm, tested on acinGov and Vortal; a Portuguese company presentation; reference sheets by Portaria 255/2023 phases with construction cost; and translated home-country certificates. Fourth, watch the open market, the Diário da República, BASE, TED and the OA's contest pages, and use BASE's contract records to see which municipalities commission design below €130,000, at what fees and from whom; introduce yourself with something specific. Fifth, enter a contest in your first year: anonymity removes the reference problem and a prize is a Portuguese reference. Sixth, price realistically: about 2.2 percent of construction is the national average signed fee in advertised procedures.

Checklist

OA prior declaration filed, or a registered Portuguese partner who will author and coordinate
Portuguese engineering partners registered with their Ordem, with liability insurance
Qualified electronic signatures for everyone who binds the firm, tested on the platforms
Accounts on acinGov and Vortal; others added as notices require
Certificates with legalised Portuguese translations, ready within five working days
Reference sheets in Portuguese, by Portaria 255/2023 phases, with construction cost and client contact
Alerts on the Diário da República, BASE and TED for architecture CPV codes; OA contest pages bookmarked
BASE contract searches for your target municipalities and building types
Anonymity check for contest uploads: no signatures, names or metadata in design files
Prior hearing, five-day administrative challenge and one-month judicial deadlines noted for every procedure

Frequently asked questions

Can a foreign architecture firm bid for public work in Portugal?

Yes. Procedures are open to firms from other EU and EEA states on equal terms, and no Portuguese company or office is needed. The project must be authored by an architect registered with the Ordem dos Arquitectos, which an EU or EEA architect achieves by registration or by a prior declaration for occasional services, or the team must include a registered Portuguese architect.

What are the Portuguese thresholds for architecture services in 2026?

For procedures started from 1 October 2026: direct award below €75,000, invited consultation of three firms below €130,000, and a special consultation of five firms up to the EU threshold for projects linked to European funds, housing, health and digital transition. From €216,000 (€140,000 for central government) the procedure is also advertised in the Official Journal of the EU. All values are net of VAT.

Where are architecture tenders published in Portugal?

In Part II of the Diário da República ("Parte L – Contratos públicos") and on BASE, plus TED above the EU thresholds. Documents and bids are on the platform named in the notice, often acinGov or Vortal. Direct awards and invited consultations are not advertised; they appear on BASE once signed.

How does the winner of a concurso de conceção get the commission?

The jury's ranking binds the client. The selected entrant proves its professional qualification within five days and is then invited to a direct award of the design contract under article 27.º(1)(g) of the CCP, in which fee and scope are agreed.

Must I submit in Portuguese?

Yes. Article 58.º requires proposal documents in Portuguese; the programme may admit named documents in another language, and foreign certificates need a translation.

How low do Portuguese design fees go?

The OA found that base prices in advertised procedures averaged 3.45 percent of construction cost, signed fees 2.23 percent, about 65 percent of the base price, and that 30 percent of contracts were signed below half the base price. There is no fee scale and no automatic abnormally low threshold.