Tender calendar 2026: key dates, seasonality and timescales
The bidder's 2026 calendar: the dates that changed the rules, when UK and Irish buyers publish, the minimum response periods and how to plan a watch.
Updated on September 5, 2026
Verified on 5 September 2026.
Bidding for public contracts is planned a year at a time. Three things set the rhythm: the dates on which the rules change, the seasonality of buyers' publishing, and the response period that opens with each tender notice. This page brings the three together for 2026.
The regulatory dates of 2026
| Date | Event | Effect for a bidder |
|---|---|---|
| 1 January 2026 | New threshold amounts under the Procurement Act 2023: £135,018 for central government goods and services, £207,720 for other authorities, £5,193,000 for works, all including VAT (verified 2026-09-05) | Slightly more contracts under the full regime, with published notices and minimum periods |
| Start of the financial year, 1 April 2026 | New budgets for UK public bodies | Programmes confirmed, contracts awarded in the spring start delivering |
| May 2026 | Scottish Parliament and Senedd elections, and English local elections | Pre-election slowdown on large new awards, catch-up afterwards |
| 13 July 2026 | PPN 022, procuring steel in government contracts | New requirements in works and manufacturing bids to central government |
| 5 August 2026 | PPN 026, the social value model | Rewrite your social value answers to central government against the current model |
| 1 January 2028 | Next biennial revision of the thresholds |
The figures are in the 2026 thresholds table and the rest of the changes in what is new in 2026.
Seasonality of publishing
There is no official month-by-month count of notices published on Find a Tender. The pattern below is what practitioners and monitoring services observe; it varies by sector and buyer type. The driver in the United Kingdom is the public financial year, which runs from 1 April to 31 March. Ireland works on the calendar year, so Irish buyers peak slightly differently.
| Period | Trend | Why |
|---|---|---|
| January to March | Heavy | Buyers push to award before the financial year ends on 31 March, and to have contracts running from 1 April; frameworks expiring on 31 March are recompeted |
| April to June | Steady, with large programmes launched | Budgets confirmed, new schemes released; in 2026 the devolved and local elections in May delayed some major awards |
| July and August | Dip, but no stop | Holidays on both sides; notices still go out, often on a Friday, with amendments following in the days after |
| September to November | Second peak | Procurements timed to award before Christmas and start in the new calendar year; budget commitments made before the year-end squeeze |
| December | Slows down | Notices published with January deadlines; a quiet fortnight around the holidays |
Two periods deserve care. Summer is the riskiest for a bidder: a below-threshold notice published in mid-July with a three-week deadline closes in early August, and if nobody is watching, the opportunity is gone. It is also when competition is thinnest. December has the same effect in miniature: a 25-day period spanning the holidays leaves far fewer working days than the same period in October.
The statutory response periods
Each notice opens a period whose minimum depends on the procedure. For contracts above the threshold under the Procurement Act 2023, the minimums are as follows.
| Procedure | Minimum period |
|---|---|
| Open procedure, electronic submission and documents available with the notice | 25 days |
| Open procedure, documents provided separately, or no electronic submission | 30 days, 35 days if neither |
| Competitive flexible procedure, requests to participate | 25 days, 10 days in urgent circumstances |
| Reduced tendering period after a qualifying planned procurement notice, in urgency, or with preselected suppliers | 10 days |
| Below-threshold contracts | No minimum; the buyer sets a proportionate period |
Since electronic submission is universal, the period you will most often see above the threshold is 25 or 30 days. Below the threshold, two to four weeks is normal. The periods run in calendar days from publication of the notice, so a weekly watch can eat a fifth of the time before you have even read the pack. The detail, including what an amendment does to the deadline, is in tender response times in 2026.
Planning the year
How often to look
- Daily for below-threshold notices and for your core trade: that is where the deadlines are shortest.
- Weekly for above-threshold procedures and for planned procurement notices, which announce contracts months ahead.
- Quarterly to reread the contract award notices of your competitors and note when those contracts end.
A retro-plan for a 25-day tender
| Day | Step |
|---|---|
| D0 | Notice detected, tender pack downloaded from an account, bid or no bid decision |
| D2 | Instructions to tenderers and specification read, clarification questions sent, site visit booked |
| D3 to D16 | Quality submission written, pricing schedule completed, selection documents collected |
| D17 to D21 | Cross-reading, electronic signature if required, format and file size checks |
| D22 to D23 | Upload on the e-sourcing portal, at least 48 hours of margin |
Send clarification questions early. Answers arriving days before the deadline are the classic argument for an extension, and the argument is much stronger when the question was asked in the first week.
Anticipate rather than react
Pipeline notices from large buyers, planned procurement notices and last year's award notices tell you in January which contracts will be advertised during the year. A four-year framework awarded in 2022 comes back to the market in 2026, and the award notice states its end date. Add those dates to your own calendar and prepare the quality content before the notice appears, not after. Scoutee lets you organise that watch by keyword, CPV code and area.