German Public Procurement Acceleration Act enters into force: New opportunities and new rules for companies bidding for public contracts

What companies need to know

The Public Procurement Acceleration Act is a key reform of public procurement law in Germany. Its purpose is, in particular, to help accelerate investment in infrastructure, digitalisation, competitiveness and security. The reform focuses on reducing bureaucracy, giving contracting authorities greater flexibility and delivering tangible relief for both the public administration and businesses.

Key changes and implications for bidders

• Higher direct award threshold: For federal public contracts, the direct award threshold will be increased to EUR 50,000. Up to this value, no formal procurement procedure involving competition between several companies is generally required. This makes it even more important for companies to be known to relevant public contracting authorities at an early stage, to have conditions in place for smaller call-offs and to be able to submit reliable offers at short notice.
• Greater flexibility for bundled awards: The principle of dividing contracts into lots remains in place, as does the protection it affords to SMEs under procurement law. At the same time, bundled awards will be made easier in certain infrastructure projects where timing considerations so require. In practice, companies should therefore assess at an early stage whether they can deliver larger work packages on their own or whether bidding consortia, subcontracting models or strategic partnerships will be necessary.
• Relief for public contracting authorities and bidders: The reform aims to make procurement procedures less formalistic and easier to handle. Requirements relating to evidence and documentation are to be reduced, and suitability evidence is to become less bureaucratic. Companies should not treat this as an invitation to be less diligent. Precisely because procedures may move more quickly, self-declarations, references, register extracts, insurance certificates and pricing documents must be up to date, complete and readily available internally.
• Further digitalisation of procurement: Electronic communication, digital notices and structured procedural data will be further strengthened. Procurement and review procedures are also to become more digital. In practical terms, this means that responsibilities for procurement platforms, user rights, deadline monitoring, signatures and electronic communication should be clearly allocated. In accelerated procedures, technical errors or late uploads will become increasingly difficult to remedy.
• Restricted legal protection: Legal remedies under procurement law will also be more strongly geared towards acceleration. Review proceedings before the public procurement chamber will remain available. However, if the procurement tribunal rejects the review application, an immediate appeal will no longer have suspensive effect in the future. In such cases, it will also no longer be possible to apply to the appellate court for an extension of the suspensive effect pending the decision on the appeal. In practice, the decisive stage for legal protection will therefore shift further towards the proceedings before the procurement tribunal. Bidders should review procurement documents immediately after publication and present their case fully at first instance. This change has prompted considerable debate. The Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf has expressed general doubts regarding this rule and, in a specific case concerning Bundeswehr procurement, has referred the question of its constitutionality to the Federal Constitutional Court (Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf, decision of 18 May 2026, VII-Verg 6/26).

Outlook: What companies should focus on now

With the entry into force, the Public Procurement Acceleration Act now faces its practical test. The reform is likely to make public procurement more pragmatic and, ideally, faster. Companies should use this development as an opportunity to review their procurement organisation, including whether the evidence typically required is available, whether roles for preparing a bid are clearly allocated and with which other companies a joint bid could potentially be submitted.

Going forward, it will be crucial to learn about procurement projects at an early stage, handle digital procurement processes reliably and submit robust offers at short notice. At the same time, legal protection under procurement law remains relevant, but it will become more time-sensitive: the faster procedures are conducted, the more important it will be to keep procurement documents, deadlines, objection obligations and documentation requirements firmly in view from day one.

Authored by Jonathan Möller.