Procurement rules tracker: the dates that changed what a bid has to do

Three changes are worth tracking, and only two are law#

Procurement law moves slowly and then all at once, and a bid team that misses a cutover finds out when a notice is rejected or a procedure runs under the wrong regime. We track three changes. The UK Procurement Act came into force on a fixed date. The EU notice standard, eForms, replaced the old forms on a fixed date. The third, the European Commission proposal for a single Public Procurement Act, is a proposal and has no force at all yet.

We take every date from the legal text or from the issuing institution, and we say so where a source gives only a month. This page is the one in our collection that we expect to revise, so the date above is the date of the latest development it covers, not the date we last edited it.

The UK Procurement Act went live on a date that moved once#

The Procurement Act received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023^[1]. Most of it came into force on 24 February 2025^[2]. That date is not the one originally appointed. Regulations made on 16 September 2024 moved the commencement date from 28 October 2024 to 24 February 2025^[3], and the same amendment moved several later transitional dates.

The commencement regulations also carry saving provisions. Procurements started under the previous regulations are not swept into the new regime on the day it begins: the earlier rules continue to govern them^[2]. In practice a supplier in the UK market has been working under two regimes side by side, and which one applies depends on when the procurement started, not on when the supplier bids.

eForms became mandatory for EU notices in October 2023#

The Publications Office states that notices could be published with eForms from November 2022 and that eForms became mandatory in October 2023, under Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1780, established in 2019^[4]. We give the month rather than a day because that is what the page we checked gives, and we do not state a day we have not read in the primary text.

The practical effect is on structure. A notice is now a structured record against a published standard rather than a form with free-text fields, which is a change for anyone who reads, reuses or republishes the data as much as for the authority that files it.

The Commission proposes one Regulation in place of three Directives#

On 9 September 2026 the European Commission adopted proposal COM(2026) 590 for a Regulation on public contracts and concessions, which it titles the Public Procurement Act^[5]. It would repeal Directives 2014/23/EU, 2014/24/EU and 2014/25/EU, which cover concessions, public contracts and the utilities sectors respectively^[5]. A Regulation applies directly, where the Directives of 2014 had to be transposed into national law one member state at a time.

One detail shows the direction. In the draft, quality criteria would carry at least 30 % of the total points awarded, and at least 50 % where the subject matter is labour-intensive^[5]. The text also states that it would enter into force on the twentieth day after publication in the Official Journal and apply from a date two years after that, with the date left blank in the draft^[5].

Discussion#

Limitations#

The proposal is a draft. The Parliament and the Council will amend it, and nothing in it binds anyone today. We quote figures from the Commission text, and every one of them can change before adoption. The existing Directives and national laws stay in force until a Regulation is adopted and begins to apply.

We have read the instruments for the UK dates and the proposal text for the EU one, but for eForms we relied on the Publications Office page, which gives months. We did not read the consolidated text of the implementing regulation, so we state no day for the cutover and no detail of its transitional arrangements. We also do not cover national rules below the EU and UK thresholds, devolved procurement regimes, or any change made after the date of this page.

A tracker like this is a snapshot of legal text, not legal advice. A bid team facing a live procedure should read the instrument that governs it.

What we will revisit#

We will update this page when the proposal moves in the Parliament or the Council, and add the date each time. Anything we cannot trace to the legal text or the issuing institution stays out.

Conclusion#

Two of the three changes are settled and dated, and the third is a proposal whose final shape is unknown. The useful habit is to keep the three apart: the UK regime and eForms are rules to comply with now, and the Commission proposal is a rule to watch.