The Government has submitted a bill to Parliament on the reform of the Procurement Act (HE 2/2026). The law is intended to enter into force this spring. The law includes transition periods for affiliated unit procurement.
One of the main goals of the reform is to encourage careful preparation of procurement. According to the government's proposal, the law is intended to be amended, among other things, as follows:
- A market survey must be conducted for procurements over 10 MEUR. The survey must not be discriminatory. The content and method of implementation of the survey are at the discretion of the purchasing unit.
- A procurement exceeding the EU threshold may not be divided into lots only for a special reason. However, the procurement does not have to be divided into lots if, for example, this is not possible for a justified reason or would be more expensive. The contracting authority could leave the procurement without dividing it into lots if this would not be possible for a justified reason due to the nature and scope of the procurement or the method of service implementation, the manageability and overall responsibility of the procurement as a whole, or the risks associated with division.
- An appealable decision must be made regarding non-distribution.
- If only one tender has been received in an open procedure, the procurement must always be suspended, unless:
- a market survey has been carried out,
- the purchase is divided into parts, or
- there is a particularly compelling reason for the deviation.
- For procurements exceeding EU thresholds, the contracting entity will be obliged to justify in the procurement report, procurement decision or other procurement documents how it has carried out the preparation of the procurement in the relevant procurement procedure. This change aims to increase transparency.
- A resource subcontractor can only be used if it actually performs the work.
- The client can also check the exclusion criteria for subcontractors. However, corrective actions are possible.
- Added mandatory exclusion criteria:
- aggravated accounting crime, aggravated environmental damage and aggravated nature conservation crime.
- Minimum ownership requirement as a condition for direct procurement: a purchasing entity can make a direct procurement from an affiliated entity if it owns more than 10 percent of it.
The final content of the Procurement Act will be confirmed after parliamentary consideration and we will inform you about it separately.
See also
More information
Risto Aunio
Responsible lawyer
risto.aunio@rt.fi + 358 40 743 1890Building Construction Industry Association
Elina Vilponen
Lawyer
elina.vilponen@rt.fi +358 40 484 9690Building Construction Industry Association
