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One day, two regimes: the RJUE and the Public Contracts Code both change on 1 October
Decreto-Lei no. 177/2026, published today in Diário da República no. 172/2026, 1.ª série, amends the Código dos Contratos Públicos approved in the annex to Decreto-Lei no. 18/2008, of 29 January. Article 11.º sets the date: it enters into force on 1 October 2026.
That is the same date on which the amendments to the Regime Jurídico da Urbanização e da Edificação introduced by Decreto-Lei no. 108/2026 take effect. That decree-law reviews the regime applicable to the licensing of urban development operations. Its entry into force was postponed by Decreto-Lei no. 155-B/2026, which gave its article 13.º the current wording. Portaria no. 320/2026/1 comes into force on the same date, approving the application forms and identifying the instructional documents. Anyone working on public works will face an amended licensing regime and a revised Public Contracts Code on the same morning.
The thresholds rise, and they rise steeply
The most visible change is in the choice of procedure. For public works contracts, article 19.º will allow prior consultation below 1 000 000 € and direct award below 150 000 €. Until 30 September, the same figures are 150 000 € and 30 000 €.
For the acquisition of services and movable goods, article 20.º(1) will allow prior consultation below 130 000 € and direct award below 75 000 €, against the current 75 000 € and 20 000 €.
The quantity that governs the choice of procedure also changes. The Code stops referring to the value of the contract and now refers to the estimated value of the contract. Under the new article 17.º, that value covers the price expected to be paid by the contracting authority and by third parties, the value of any consideration provided in favour of the successful tenderer, and the value of the advantages that flow directly to it from performance of the contract and that can be treated as consideration for the services it is to provide. The calculation must rest on objective economic criteria.
What happens to procedures already running
Article 10.º answers this with one rule and one exception. The rule: the amendments apply to award procedures started after entry into force, and to the performance of contracts concluded following those procedures. The exception: in two matters, objective modification of the contract and alternative resolution of pre-contractual and contractual disputes, the amendments also apply to procedures already running and to contracts already in performance on 1 October.
In practice, a tender opened in September runs to the end under today's rules, except in those two matters.
Design and build gets an article of its own
The new article 43.º-A covers the cases where the contractor prepares the detailed design. In those contracts, the tender specifications consist only of a preliminary programme, and the estimated value stated in the invitation or in the procedure programme must set out separately the amounts for design and for construction.
The duty falls on the client's estimated value, not on the bids. It makes visible, from the preparation stage onwards, the share the contracting authority attributes to design. Article 43.º-A does not, in itself, require every bid to state the design price and the construction price separately. For that comparison to be possible, the procurement documents themselves have to require the breakdown from tenderers. The same article provides that the detailed design prepared by the contractor does not include the schedule of unit prices referred to in article 57.º(2)(a), and article 371.º now provides that, in these contracts, an order for complementary works issued during the design phase must be accompanied by the amendment to the preliminary programme.
One point remains open. Article 43.º(7) refers the mandatory content of the detailed design and of the preliminary programme to a portaria of the member of Government responsible for public works. As at 4 September 2026, that portaria has not been published.
Lei no. 30/2021 goes, and part of its regime moves into the Code
Article 8.º repeals articles 2.º to 16.º of Lei no. 30/2021, of 21 May. Part of the simplification measures is recast and moves inside the Code, through the special prior consultation of articles 127.º-A to 127.º-C, in which the contracting authority invites at least five entities directly. It is not a general route. It may be used only for the contracts listed in article 127.º-B, among them projects financed by European funds, public or cost-controlled housing, property transferred to municipalities, digital transformation, and works in the health and social care fields, and only where the estimated value falls both below the article 474.º thresholds and below 2 000 000 €.
Article 127.º-C also limits the choice of invited parties. For public works contracts and concessions or service concessions, an entity cannot be invited if the same contracting authority has already awarded it, following a special prior consultation, contracts covering services of the same type whose accumulated price in the current financial year and the two preceding ones is equal to or above 2 000 000 €. On the first application of this rule, article 7.º(3) requires contracts awarded through the simplified prior consultation under Lei no. 30/2021 to be counted as well.
There is also a new chapter on arbitration and alternative dispute resolution, in articles 464.º-B to 464.º-G. It is one of the two matters that, under article 10.º, reaches contracts already in performance.
A note on the text you will be reading
The Public Contracts Code has been republished in full, in annex ii to the decree-law. From 1 October, any procedural document citing articles of the Code should be checked against that republication rather than against the version in force today. Article 7.º keeps Portaria no. 372/2017, of 14 December, in force until the portaria foreseen in article 81.º(2) of the Code, in its new wording, takes effect.
What to do before 1 October
If you have public works or a bid in preparation, three decisions now carry a date. If the procedure is legitimately scheduled to open from October onwards, the new thresholds may change the routes available and the calendar. Higher thresholds do not, however, remove the duty to observe the principles of public procurement or the rules for calculating the estimated value in article 17.º, which requires third party payments and the advantages flowing to the successful tenderer to be included. If the procedure opens in September, it runs as a rule under the current regime, and the procurement documents should say so plainly. And in a design and build contract opened from 1 October, the estimated value stated in the invitation or in the programme must set out design and construction separately.
CertiAmb prepares detailed designs and engineering designs for public and private works, including design and build contracts. If you have a procedure opening in the coming weeks and want to work out which side of the date it falls on, talk to us: geral@certiamb.com · +351 910 441 470.
See also our Engineering Design service.