How to bid on public tenders in Switzerland

Swiss public tenders are published on simap.ch, the joint procurement platform of the Confederation and the cantons. A new version went live on 1 July 2024 and has since added online submission, although each authority decides whether it accepts bids online, by post, in person or in several of these ways.

You can search tenders without an account, but you need a personal login and a supplier account for your company to download tender documents, ask questions and submit a bid.

Federal authorities follow the Federal Act on Public Procurement (BöB) and its ordinance (VöB), while cantons and municipalities follow the Intercantonal Agreement on Public Procurement (IVöB). The cantons are moving from the IVöB 2001 to the revised IVöB 2019, which is aligned with the federal law, so check which version applies. The thresholds are unchanged for 2026 and 2027 and exclude VAT.

Threshold (CHF)	Federal (BöB)	Cantons and municipalities (IVöB 2019)
International scope, supplies and services	230,000	350,000
International scope, works	8,700,000	8,700,000
Open procedure required, supplies and services	230,000	250,000
Open procedure required, works	2,000,000	500,000 (main construction), 250,000 (ancillary construction trades)

Foreign access rests on international agreements rather than the EU directives. The WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) and the bilateral procurement agreement with the EU open contracts in the international scope to companies from EU countries.

Below the international thresholds, foreign companies are admitted only if their home country grants reciprocity (Gegenrecht) or the authority allows it, and in federal procedures foreign bidders can appeal only on the same reciprocity condition. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) keeps the list of countries with market access commitments.

Since 1 April 2025, federal authorities can also exclude a supplier that fails to fix a vulnerability in hardware or software it has produced within the deadline set by the Federal Office for Cybersecurity. The new Switzerland-EU package of agreements was signed on 2 March 2026 but is not yet in force.

In most cases yes. In federal tenders the authority chooses German, French or Italian as the procedure language and must accept bids in any of the three, while English is allowed only in exceptions such as services performed abroad or highly specialised technical services. Construction documents use at least the local official language.

Authorities can ask you to prove that you meet the participation conditions with a self-declaration (Selbstdeklaration). Further evidence they may request includes a commercial register extract, proof of paid taxes and social contributions, a debt enforcement register extract (Betreibungsregisterauszug), three years of financial statements and references, so ask early which home-country equivalents are accepted.

For work performed in Switzerland, you and your subcontractors must respect the local working conditions, occupational safety rules and equal pay for women and men. Under the Posted Workers Act (Entsendegesetz), posted workers must receive the minimum wages and working conditions that apply in Switzerland.

EU and EFTA companies posting staff for up to 90 working days per calendar year need no permit, but they must file an online notification at least eight days before work starts if the work lasts more than eight days in a calendar year. In construction, landscaping, hospitality, cleaning, security and a few other sectors the notification is required from the first day.

A foreign company generally becomes liable for Swiss VAT when its worldwide turnover reaches CHF 100,000 a year and it supplies services in Switzerland that are not covered by the reverse charge (Bezugsteuer), such as construction work on a Swiss site. It must then appoint a tax representative based in Switzerland.

The deadline that matters most is the 20-day appeal period. Appeals against federal decisions such as an exclusion or the award go to the Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht) within 20 days, and court holidays do not extend this period. Appeals are possible from CHF 150,000 for supplies and services and CHF 2,000,000 for works, and outside the international scope the court can only declare that a decision was unlawful.

An appeal does not stop the procedure automatically. In the international scope the contract may be signed once the appeal period expires unless the court grants suspensive effect, and outside it the contract may be signed as soon as the award is made.

Bids with significant formal errors or deviations from binding requirements can be excluded. The minimum bid period in an international open procedure is 40 days, but it can be shortened.