Spotting construction projects early: signals before the tender

Why look early

Outside the scope of international treaties, the bid deadline is as a rule at least 20 days (PPA Art. 46 para. 4; IAPP Art. 46 para. 4). Within that scope it is at least 40 days in the open procedure and can be shortened under certain conditions (PPA Art. 46 para. 2 and Art. 47). In that time you read the documents, ask questions, look for partners and price the job.

If you know about a project earlier, you can plan capacity, gather references and prepare a bidding consortium. An early signal is not a promise, though: the contracting authority decides whether, when and in which procedure the contract is awarded.

Prior notices, market surveys and design contests

The prior notice is the official early signal: in the open and selective procedures it is published on simap.ch (PPA Art. 48 para. 1; IAPP Art. 48 para. 1). If it serves to shorten the bid deadline within the scope of international treaties, it appears 40 days to 12 months before the tender and states, among other things, the subject and the approximate deadline (PPA Art. 47 para. 3).

Before a tender, the contracting authority may carry out a market survey. Bidders it consults are not treated as having prior involvement because of that, and the results later appear in the tender documents (PPA Art. 14 para. 3; IAPP Art. 14 para. 3).

With design contests and study contracts, the contracting authority has different solutions worked out, for example in terms of design, technology or ecology (PPA Art. 22; PPO Art. 14 para. 1). For construction firms and tradespeople, an architectural design contest is a sign that a project is taking shape at that location.

Building applications

Buildings and installations may only be built or altered with official approval (Spatial Planning Act, SPA Art. 22 para. 1). Many cantons publish building applications in the official gazette, as a rule with the developer, location, project and objection period. How and where is set by the canton and the municipality.

A building application shows that a project is well advanced. Whether work will then be publicly tendered depends on who is building: procurement law applies to the contracting authorities subject to it (PPA Art. 4; IAPP Art. 4). Outside the scope of international treaties, the IAPP also covers projects more than 50 percent of whose total costs are subsidised with public funds (IAPP Art. 4 para. 4 let. b).

If a private person or a private company is building, there is usually no public tender. The way in is then through the developer or their planning office.

Credits, budgets and construction programmes

Before the public sector builds, it needs a credit. For cantons and municipalities, depending on the amount and cantonal law, the government, the parliament, the municipal assembly or the voters decide. The related documents, such as budgets and credit requests, are often publicly available.

Some cantons publish construction programmes for their cantonal roads, for example Lucerne, Schwyz and Zug. They list the projects with their period and often their amount.

An approved credit or an entry in a programme does not yet say when or in which procedure the contract will be awarded. But it shows you which body will be building in your region in the coming years.

Federal projects

The Confederation draws up concepts and sectoral plans for its tasks that affect land use and informs the cantons of its construction projects in good time (SPA Art. 13).

For the Confederation's civil buildings, the Federal Council asks Parliament for credits every year in a dispatch on civil real estate. It states for each project, among other things, the location, the credit and the schedule (most recently the 2026 dispatch on civil real estate, BBl 2026 1529).

The Federal Roads Office FEDRO publishes for each of its branches a list of the procurements it plans to publish on simap.ch over the following twelve months and updates it every January. The lists are not legally binding; only the publication on simap.ch counts.

Looking back, federal contracting authorities report at least once a year on their contracts from CHF 50,000 (PPO Art. 27). The lists show who regularly buys your service.

What TEXFY shows

Under “Before the tender”, TEXFY gathers such signals on pages of their own: “Early signals” with prior information notices, requests for information and competitions on simap.ch, “Planned projects” from sectoral plans, parliamentary credits, investment plans and programmes, and “Building applications” with source and objection period. The pages show what the connected sources publish, not every project in Switzerland.

What to do with an early signal

• Check who is building. If the developer is subject to procurement law, a procurement procedure usually follows; with private developers, contact them directly.
• Note the dates: planned publication, end of the objection period or date of the credit decision.
• Tell the contracting authority you are interested when a prior notice asks for it (PPA Art. 47 para. 3 let. c).
• Gather references and proofs and clarify possible partners for a bidding consortium.
• Be careful if you help prepare the procedure. A bidder that took part in preparing a procedure can be excluded if the advantage gained cannot be offset (PPA Art. 14 para. 1; IAPP Art. 14 para. 1). Being consulted in a market survey does not count (PPA Art. 14 para. 3).
• Keep an eye on simap.ch and your search alerts: only the tender itself counts.