UK and Ireland procurement thresholds for 2026–27

Thresholds decide which rulebook a procurement runs under, how long you get to respond, and whether the opportunity has to be advertised at all. They are revised every two years to track the WTO Government Procurement Agreement, and the current set took effect on 1 January 2026.

United Kingdom

Set by Schedule 1 to the Procurement Act 2023, as amended by the Threshold Amounts (Amendment) Regulations 2025. These apply in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and to reserved UK-wide procurement.

The advertising duties beneath them

Separate from the thresholds above, section 87 requires a below-threshold tender notice for a notifiable below-threshold contract: estimated value of £12,000 or more for central government authorities that are not devolved Welsh authorities, and £30,000 or more for everyone else. The duty does not bite where an authority advertises only to invite tenders from particular or pre-selected suppliers.

For a smaller supplier this is the line that matters most. It is not a regulated-procurement threshold; it is the point at which a buyer has to advertise rather than quietly approach someone they already know.

The VAT question, answered precisely

This is where secondary guidance is routinely wrong, including an earlier version of this page. The rule is not "UK inclusive, everyone else exclusive".

Worth being honest about the UK line: the Act does not say it. Schedule 3 defines the estimate as the maximum amount the authority could expect to pay under the contract, and mentions VAT nowhere. The VAT-inclusive reading follows from that wording — an authority pays VAT — and from the GPA basis the figures derive from, which is how the Scottish Government states it for the equivalent Scottish thresholds. If a specific contract sits close to the line, that is a question for a procurement lawyer, not a blog.

Scotland

Scotland did not adopt the Procurement Act 2023. Its GPA-derived thresholds sit in the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 and the utilities and concessions regulations, amended for 2026 by the Public Procurement (Agreement on Government Procurement) (Thresholds) (Miscellaneous Amendments) (Scotland) Regulations 2025.

Underneath sits the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, which regulates lower-value work from £50,000 for goods and services and £2m for works. Those floors are not revised on the GPA cycle, are unchanged for 2026, and are calculated exclusive of VAT. A Scottish Government consultation on raising them has closed, with changes expected during 2026.

Ireland

Ireland applies the EU thresholds, set for 2026–27 by Commission Delegated Regulations (EU) 2025/2150, 2025/2151 and 2025/2152. All figures are exclusive of VAT.

What crossing the line actually changes

Above threshold

• The procurement must be advertised on the relevant national service, and in Ireland on TED as well.
• Minimum time limits apply to responses — you get a defined window rather than a buyer's preference.
• The standstill period applies after award, which is your window to challenge.
• The full notice sequence is mandatory, so the procurement leaves a trail you can follow.

Below threshold

• Advertising may still be required by the section 87 duties, but the process itself is far lighter.
• Timescales are the buyer's to set, and are often short — days rather than weeks.
• Much of this work never reaches a national service and lives on the buyer's portal.
• Under section 85, a buyer running a below-threshold competition generally may not filter tenders by an assessment of supplier suitability — a real advantage for newer suppliers. Works contracts at or above £135,018 (central government) or £207,720 (others) are excepted.

Do not slice a contract to stay under

Schedule 3 requires the estimate to be the maximum the authority could expect to pay under the contract, including amounts already paid. Splitting a requirement to duck a threshold is a breach, and it matters to suppliers as well as buyers: a contract awarded through a disaggregated process is challengeable, and the challenge lands on the contract you just won.

TenderGraph records the value a buyer published on each notice and states plainly how those figures are treated — in particular that a framework's published value is a ceiling rather than money awarded, which is the most common way procurement figures get overstated.