In short
Under Directive 2014/24/EU the minimum time limit for tenders in an open procedure is 35 days from the date the contract notice is sent, 30 days if tenders can be submitted electronically, and 15 days with a prior information notice or in duly substantiated urgency. Belgium and Germany apply these figures as they are, but the Netherlands requires 45 days (40 with electronic submission). Buyers must answer clarification questions in good time: at least 6 days before the deadline in the EU, Belgium and Germany, and 10 days in the Netherlands. The standstill period after the award decision is 10 calendar days in the EU minimum, 15 in Belgium, 10 or 15 in Germany and 20 in the Netherlands. In practice, the median tender period in an open procedure in 2025 was 47 days after publication on TED in the Netherlands, 30 in Belgium and 31 in Germany.
This guide is for US companies and other English-speaking proposal teams that bid on public contracts in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. In Europe a bid is usually called a tender, and the solicitation is published as a contract notice. It compares the statutory time limits side by side, with the article behind each figure, and ends with a planning table you can use from the day a notice appears.
Why one "EU deadline" does not exist
The EU directive sets minimum time limits. Member states may set longer ones, and the Netherlands does. That is why a general answer such as "35 days" is right for Germany and Belgium but wrong for a Dutch tender. The national figures apply to procurements above the EU thresholds. Below the thresholds, each country uses its own, often looser, rules.
All periods below are minimums. Article 47 of the directive requires buyers to take account of the complexity of the contract and the time needed to prepare tenders. Longer periods are always allowed, and common for complex contracts.
Unless stated otherwise, days are calendar days, counted from the date the contract notice or the invitation to tender was sent. Germany counts from the day after it was sent.
Minimum time limits compared
| Time limit | Directive 2014/24/EU | Netherlands | Belgium | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open procedure: tenders | 35 days | 45 days | 35 days | 35 days |
| Open procedure: electronic submission | minus 5 days (30) | minus 5 days (40) | minus 5 days (30) | minus 5 days (30) |
| Open procedure: after a prior information notice | 15 days | 29 days, never below 22 | 15 days | 15 days |
| Open procedure: urgency | 15 days | 15 days | 15 days | 15 days |
| Restricted procedure: requests to participate | 30 days | 30 days | 30 days | 30 days |
| Restricted procedure: tenders | 30 days | 40 days | 30 days | 30 days |
| Restricted procedure: electronic submission | minus 5 days (25) | minus 5 days (35) | minus 5 days (25) | minus 5 days (25) |
| Restricted procedure: after a prior information notice | 10 days | 29 days, never below 22 | 10 days | 10 days |
| Restricted procedure: urgency | 15 days requests, 10 days tenders | 15 days requests, 10 days tenders | 15 days requests, 10 days tenders | 15 days requests, 10 days tenders |
| Competitive procedure with negotiation | 30 days requests, 30 days initial tenders | 30 days requests, 40 days initial tenders | 30 days requests, 30 days initial tenders | 30 days requests, 30 days initial tenders |
| Competitive dialogue | 30 days requests, no fixed tender minimum | 30 days requests, no fixed tender minimum | 30 days requests | 30 days requests, no fixed tender minimum |
| Answers to clarification questions | 6 days before the deadline (4 if urgent) | 10 days before (4 if urgent) | 6 days before (4 if urgent) | 6 days before (4 if urgent) |
| Standstill after the award decision | 10 calendar days if sent electronically, otherwise 15 | at least 20 calendar days | 15 days | 10 calendar days if sent electronically or by fax, otherwise 15 |
Legal basis per column: Directive 2014/24/EU Articles 27 to 30, 47 and 53, and Remedies Directive 89/665/EEC Article 2a. Netherlands: Aanbestedingswet 2012, Articles 2.71 to 2.74b and 2.127. Belgium: law of 17 June 2016 on public procurement, Articles 36 to 39 and 59, and law of 17 June 2013, Article 11. Germany: VgV sections 15 to 18, 20 and 38, and GWB section 134.
What the table does not show
- Prior information notice conditions. The shortened periods only apply if the notice contained all available information and was sent between 35 days and 12 months before the contract notice. In the Netherlands the window starts at 52 days, not 35.
- Documents not fully online. If the buyer cannot give free, full and direct electronic access to the tender documents, the tender period is extended by 5 days (directive Article 53, Dutch Article 2.72, German VgV section 41).
- Mutual agreement. For the restricted procedure, sub-central buyers can agree the tender period with all shortlisted candidates. Without agreement it is at least 10 days under the directive and in Germany, and at least 40 days in the Netherlands. In Germany the option is not available to the highest federal authorities.
- Significant changes. If the buyer makes significant changes to the documents, it must extend the deadline in proportion to the change, in all four systems.
- Germany for works. Construction contracts in Germany follow section 10a EU and onwards of the VOB/A, with the same 35-day open-procedure minimum.
Clarification questions: the 6-day and 10-day rules
None of the four systems fixes when you must ask your questions. The buyer sets that cut-off in the tender documents, usually well before the submission deadline. The law sets what happens when answers come late: if a question was asked in good time and the answer is not available 6 days before the deadline (10 days in the Netherlands), the buyer must extend the deadline. Late or trivial questions do not trigger an extension.
The Dutch 10-day rule replaced an earlier 6-day rule after an evaluation of the Aanbestedingswet, according to PIANOo, the Dutch public procurement expertise center. In Belgium, bidders must also report errors or omissions in the documents that make pricing or comparison impossible no later than 10 days before the deadline (Royal Decree of 18 April 2017, Article 81).
In Germany, there is one more deadline to watch. Breaches of procurement law visible in the notice or documents must be challenged (a Rüge) by the submission deadline at the latest, and a breach you have recognized within 10 calendar days (GWB section 160).
After submission: standstill and challenges
Evaluation has no statutory minimum or maximum in any of the four systems. Once the buyer decides, it sends the award decision to all bidders, which starts the standstill period. The contract cannot be signed before it ends.
- Netherlands. At least 20 calendar days from the day after the decision is sent (Article 2.127). It works as a hard deadline for starting summary proceedings only if the tender documents and rejection letter say so explicitly, according to PIANOo. PIANOo notes that buyers can include such a clause.
- Belgium. 15 days from notification of the reasoned award decision. A request to suspend the decision must be filed within 15 days (law of 17 June 2013, Articles 11 and 23).
- Germany. 15 calendar days, or 10 if the information is sent electronically or by fax, counted from the day after it is sent, not from receipt (GWB section 134). A declaration that a contract is void must be sought within 30 calendar days of being told about the contract, and no later than six months after signature (GWB section 135).
In practice: how much time do you really get?
The law sets the minimum. To see how much time buyers actually give, we measured every EU contract notice published in 2025 by buyers in the three countries: the calendar days between publication on TED and the deadline stated in the notice.
| Contract notices 2025 | Deadline | Notices | 25% shorter than | Median | 25% longer than |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netherlands, open procedure | tenders | 8,510 | 39 days | 47 days | 61 days |
| Netherlands, restricted procedure | requests to participate | 1,051 | 29 days | 34 days | 42 days |
| Belgium, open procedure | tenders | 9,111 | 18 days | 30 days | 38 days |
| Belgium, competitive procedure with negotiation | requests to participate | 2,661 | 25 days | 30 days | 34 days |
| Germany, open procedure | tenders | 67,797 | 28 days | 31 days | 35 days |
| Germany, competitive procedure with negotiation | requests to participate | 14,969 | 28 days | 30 days | 32 days |
| Germany, restricted procedure | requests to participate | 997 | 28 days | 30 days | 32 days |
What stands out:
- Dutch buyers give more than the minimum. The median tender period in a Dutch open procedure is 47 days, a week above the statutory 40. A quarter of Dutch notices give 61 days or more.
- German buyers stay close to the minimum. The median is 31 days after publication, and half of all German open procedures fall between 28 and 35 days. Add the days between dispatch and publication and most land on the 30-day minimum for electronic submission.
- Belgium varies most. The median is 30 days, but a quarter of Belgian open procedures give 18 days or less. Only 1.7% are flagged as accelerated. The notice does not show whether a prior information notice was used, or whether a below-threshold contract was published on TED voluntarily, so we cannot separate these cases.
Two caveats. Statutory time limits run from the date the notice is sent; we measure from publication. In a sample of about 9,900 notices from March 2025, the median gap between dispatch and publication was 2 days (middle half 1 to 3 days). And in a restricted or negotiated procedure the notice shows only the deadline for requests to participate. The tender deadline follows in the invitation to shortlisted candidates and is not on TED.
Source: contract notices (eForms) published in 2025 by buyers in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, retrieved from TED through the TED search API on October 15, 2026. EU institutions excluded; periods of 1 to 365 days; for notices with several lots, the earliest deadline counts. Analysis by TenderRender.
Planning backwards from the deadline
The submission deadline is fixed, so plan backwards. The table below is a working schedule for an open procedure with 30 days, the minimum in Belgium and Germany with electronic submission. It is advice, not a legal rule. In the Netherlands you have at least 40 days: move the early steps forward and keep the buffer at the end.
| When (D = submission deadline) | Step | What is done by then |
|---|---|---|
| D-30 (notice sent) | Download all documents, first scan | Procedure, deadlines, question cut-off and knock-out criteria known |
| D-28 | Bid/no-bid decision | Team, writers and reviewers booked |
| D-27 to D-21 | Full analysis of the documents | Requirements, selection and award criteria, forms and contradictions listed |
| Question cut-off in the documents | Submit clarification questions | Each question cites document, section and page |
| D-21 to D-10 | Write | First draft of every quality section |
| D-6 (D-10 in the Netherlands) | Process the answers | Changes reflected in text, price and forms |
| D-10 to D-5 | Review against the award criteria | Improvements per criterion made |
| D-5 to D-2 | Price, ESPD, declarations and forms | Signatory booked |
| D-2 to D-1 | Final check and upload to the buyer's platform | Submission receipt saved |
| D | Buffer | Nothing left to do |
TenderRender extracts dates from the tender documents into a plan. Each date links back to the document and page it came from, and the plan can be exported as a calendar file for Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar. Check the dates against the notice all the same.
The step that slips most often is the question round. Teams reach the contradictions only after the cut-off has passed. TenderRender proposes clarification questions after it has processed the documents, each with its reasoning and the source location, and exports them to Excel. You decide which ones to send, and you submit them yourself.
Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum tender period for an EU open procedure?
35 days from the date the contract notice was sent (Directive 2014/24/EU, Article 27). It can be reduced by 5 days for electronic submission, and to 15 days with a prior information notice or in duly substantiated urgency. The Netherlands is stricter: 45 days, or 40 with electronic submission.
How many days before the deadline must clarification questions be answered?
Under the directive, in Belgium and in Germany, answers to questions asked in good time must be available 6 days before the deadline, or 4 in urgent procedures. In the Netherlands the limit is 10 days. If the buyer misses it, the deadline must be extended.
How long is the standstill period in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany?
At least 20 calendar days in the Netherlands, 15 days in Belgium, and 10 calendar days in Germany when the decision is sent electronically or by fax, otherwise 15. The EU minimum is 10 calendar days for electronic notification.
How much time do buyers give in practice?
In 2025 EU contract notices for open procedures, the median time between publication on TED and the tender deadline was 47 days in the Netherlands, 30 days in Belgium and 31 days in Germany.
Do these time limits apply below the EU thresholds?
No. They apply to procurements above the EU thresholds. Below them, national rules apply. In Germany, for example, the UVgO only requires appropriate time limits without a fixed number of days.
Can a buyer give more time than the minimum?
Yes, and for complex contracts it should. Article 47 of the directive requires buyers to take account of the complexity of the contract and the time needed to prepare tenders. The minimums in this guide are the floor, not the norm.
Read more
Sources
- Directive 2014/24/EU, Articles 27–30, 47 and 53: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32014L0024
- Remedies Directive 89/665/EEC, Article 2a (as amended by 2007/66/EC): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:31989L0665
- TED, contract notices 2025 (via the TED Search API): https://api.ted.europa.eu
- Netherlands, Aanbestedingswet 2012: https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0032203/
- PIANOo, time limits for procedures with pre-selection: https://www.pianoo.nl/nl/inkoopproces/fase-2-doorlopen/aankondigen/termijnen-bij-procedures-met-voorselectie
- Belgium, law of 17 June 2016 on public procurement: https://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/cgi_loi/change_lg.pl?language=nl&la=N&cn=2016061719&table_name=wet
- Belgium, law of 17 June 2013 on remedies: https://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/eli/wet/2013/06/17/2013203640/justel
- Belgium, Royal Decree of 18 April 2017: https://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/cgi_loi/change_lg.pl?language=nl&la=N&table_name=wet&cn=2017041810
- Germany, VgV: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/vgv_2016/
- Germany, GWB sections 134, 135 and 160: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gwb/
