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Glossary

Below-threshold procurement (unterschwellige Vergabe)

also: below-threshold contract · sub-threshold procurement · unterschwellige Vergabe

Definition

Below-threshold procurement (German: unterschwellige Vergabe) is a public contract whose estimated net value falls below the EU thresholds and which is therefore governed not by EU procurement law but by national budgetary and procurement rules — in Germany chiefly the UVgO and Section 1 of the VOB/A. Such procedures need not be published in the Supplement to the Official Journal of the EU (TED); they appear on national, regional or municipal procurement platforms instead. By number of contracts they are the larger part of public procurement, by contract value the smaller.

Source: § 106 GWB (thresholds) · UVgO · VOB/A Section 1 · state budgetary and procurement acts
Measured on our own corpus · as of 21 August 2026

Of 93,519 open procedures in our corpus, 25,039 are flagged as below threshold — 27% of everything currently accepting bids. In Germany the figure is 5,472 out of 26,506.

Counts procedures whose submission deadline has not yet passed and whose source explicitly marks them as below threshold (a national flag on the platform, or a value comparison). Procedures carrying no flag are not counted — the true number is higher.

What it means for a bidder

For bidders this is the segment with the most favourable competitive ratio and the highest search cost. Favourable, because these procedures stay regional and competitors from other member states rarely appear. Costly, because there is no single place to look: each German federal state, many municipalities and individual ministries run their own platform, each with its own search, its own registration and its own data format. Anyone monitoring TED alone cannot see this market at all — not because TED is incomplete, but because the publication duty does not reach that far.

Two things are regularly confused. First, below threshold does not mean informal: competition, transparency and equal treatment still apply, and the permitted procedure types are prescribed. Second, legal protection differs. Above the thresholds a bidder can apply to a Vergabekammer (public procurement tribunal) for review; below them only the civil courts and the supervisory authority remain, with markedly narrower remedies. Below the thresholds, therefore, raise objections early and in writing.

Look it up in the corpus

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Related terms

EU thresholds (Schwellenwerte)The contract values at which EU-wide tendering becomes mandatory — reset every two years.UVgO — UnterschwellenvergabeordnungGermany's procedural rulebook for supplies and services below the EU thresholds.VOB/AThe German award rules for construction works — Section 1 below the thresholds, Section 2 above.TED (Tenders Electronic Daily)The EU official journal for contract notices — everything above the thresholds, nothing below them.Procurement platform (Vergabeplattform)The electronic system a buyer uses to publish, distribute documents and receive bids.

DEFINITION · a description of the law with a citation, not legal advice · FIGURE · from nightly-built aggregates of our own corpus · all terms: friedrich-clement.com/en/glossar

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