National tender competition (tilbudskonkurranse)

A national tender competition (tilbudskonkurranse) is the procedure the contracting authority uses when a procurement follows Part II of the Public Procurement Regulations (anskaffelsesforskriften); all § references on this page are to the Regulations. Part II, which applies from NOK 1.3 million up to the EEA thresholds (except health and social services), and to special services (særlige tjenester) from NOK 1.3 million with no upper limit (§ 5-1), covers supply, service and works contracts and special services. It offers two forms, the open and the restricted national tender competition (§ 8-3), and the competition is advertised in Doffin, Norway's national database for public procurement notices (§ 8-17). For special services above the EEA threshold of NOK 8.7 million, some rules from Part III also apply, among them advertising in TED (Tenders Electronic Daily, the EU's database of contract notices) and a standstill period of at least 10 days.

In an open national tender competition, any interested supplier may submit a tender, and the competition has one stage. In a restricted national tender competition, anyone may request to participate, but only those the contracting authority invites may submit a tender (§ 9-2). The contracting authority may set a minimum and, if it wishes, a maximum number of suppliers to invite, and must then state the limits and the criteria for limiting the number of candidates in the procurement documents. It must then select enough to ensure genuine competition, and no fewer than three, but fewer if there are not enough suppliers (§ 8-9).

Unlike the open or restricted procedure (anbudskonkurranse) under Part III, where negotiation is not allowed (§ 23-6 (3)), the contracting authority may negotiate with the suppliers in a national tender competition. After the tender deadline, the contracting authority decides whether to hold a dialogue with the suppliers. The dialogue may cover all aspects of the tenders and include, among other things, clarifications and negotiations, and it may be held with one or more suppliers, provided they are chosen in line with the principle of equal treatment (§ 9-3). In the procurement documents, the contracting authority must state whether it plans a dialogue and, if so, what the dialogue will cover and, as far as possible, how it will be conducted. If the contracting authority departs from the plan, the reasons must be entered in the procurement record (§ 10-5).

Part II has no fixed minimum time limits for requests to participate or tenders. The contracting authority must set the time limits taking account of the complexity of the contract and the time the suppliers need to prepare requests and tenders (§ 8-14), and the time limit must be stated in the contract notice. When the supplier has been chosen, the contracting authority sends a notification with reasons to those concerned and, as a rule, may sign the contract at the earliest after a reasonable standstill period (karensperiode) that it sets itself (§ 10-1 and § 10-2); see the page on the standstill period.

Advice: read what the tender documents say about dialogue before you set your price. If they say that the contracting authority plans negotiations, you may get a round to improve your tender, but as a rule the plan is not binding, and the contracting authority may award the contract on the basis of the tenders as submitted. Advice: submit a tender you can live with as final, both on price and on solution.

If the contracting authority chooses to negotiate with only some of the suppliers, the selection must, according to DFØ (the Norwegian Agency for Public and Financial Management), follow a ranking against the award criteria of the tenders as they stood at the tender deadline. A weak first tender can therefore keep you out of the negotiations. According to DFØ, the contracting authority may still choose to clarify ambiguities and deviations first, and rank the tenders afterwards. DFØ also writes that you have no right to change parts of your tender other than those the contracting authority raises, and that the contracting authority has no general duty to guide you in the negotiations.

Deviations and qualification are treated differently. The contracting authority may wait until after the dialogue to decide whether a tender must be rejected, but has no duty to do so (§ 9-7). In Part II, the Regulations do not tie this option to particular grounds for rejection (§ 9-7 (2)); for Part III, see the page on the competitive procedure with negotiation. DFØ writes that even a material deviation can then be corrected, and that only tenders where this does not succeed must be rejected. According to DFØ, in case 2020/528 KOFA (the Complaints Board for Public Procurement) found that the contracting authority has no duty to continue the dialogue until all deviations are corrected. According to DFØ, practice on the other hand suggests that a qualification requirement must be met at the tender deadline: in case 2020/515 KOFA, and in LE-2022-19926 the Court of Appeal (lagmannsretten), found that the requirement cannot be met later through dialogue. According to DFØ, the wording of § 9-3 nevertheless allows dialogue about the documentation showing that the requirement was met at the deadline.

In a restricted national tender competition, the request to participate is the first thing you submit, and a request that arrives too late may be rejected (§ 9-4). If the contracting authority has set a time limit for applying for interim measures (midlertidig forføyning) against the rejection of your request or against you not being selected, the time limit must be stated in the procurement documents and in the notification to you, and it is at least 15 days from the day after the notification (§ 8-16). Since 1 July 2026, only undertakings established in Norway or another EEA state, or in a state that is party to the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) or another agreement binding Norway, have rights under the Act and the Regulations, and the latter only to the extent that agreement gives them rights (Public Procurement Act § 3). Other undertakings may take part in competitions but cannot rely on those rights. In the dialogue, the contracting authority must treat the suppliers equally and may not give the others access to your solutions or other confidential information without your consent to that specific information (§ 9-3).

A municipality advertises in Doffin an open national tender competition for cleaning four schools, estimated at NOK 2.1 million for the whole contract period. That is below the EEA threshold of NOK 2.5 million for municipalities, so Part II applies. The tender documents say that the municipality plans negotiations with the three best according to the award criteria, and the tender deadline is set at 24 days. Six tenders come in. You are ranked second and are invited to negotiate, while the tender in fifth place is not. In the meeting, you learn that your staffing plan pulls your score down, and you submit a revised tender within the deadline the municipality sets. The municipality also asks for the certificate of registration (firmaattest) you forgot to attach. It shows that you were registered before the tender deadline, so according to DFØ it can be submitted afterwards.