The Public Procurement Law was last comprehensively updated in 2019. Since then, Ukraine has navigated COVID, four years of full-scale invasion, Cabinet of Ministers regulation, and over 45 rounds of amendments. The need to stabilize the sector and modernize the law had long been overdue. At the same time, full alignment of Ukraine’s procurement rules with European directives is a core requirement of EU integration.

Draft Law No. 11520 — the new Public Procurement Law — passed by the Verkhovna Rada on Wednesday, May 27, to the sound of an air raid alert, addresses both imperatives.

This is not just another set of minor adjustments. This is a complete overhaul — a massive document whose sheer scale even those who worked on it did not fully grasp until they saw the printed version handed in for signature. This is, without exaggeration, another procurement revolution. Above all, it is a revolution that brings Ukraine a significant step closer to the EU.

The DOZORRO team at Transparency International Ukraine has been involved in developing this document since 2024. We stopped counting the substantive changes we advocated for somewhere around the fortieth proposal. Equally impossible to count are the hours of working group discussions with stakeholders, in which we worked to find the best solutions and figured out how to transpose European rules into Ukrainian realities.

Admittedly, this third iteration of the Public Procurement Law has not received as much public attention as the first two — for understandable reasons. The army and its needs are, and must remain, the top priority. Yet efficient procurement means saving money that can go to the military, while also keeping the state functioning — the very state our soldiers are defending at the front. And every step toward EU integration builds trust and support from our partners, and in the long run, charts a course toward a peaceful European future.

Reform, EU integration, and money

Adopting a law fully harmonized with European procurement directives has been a partner requirement for years. It has been the top recommendation in the EU’s Enlargement Report on Ukraine for three consecutive years. It was included as a benchmark in the Ukraine Facility, and the World Bank made it a condition for a USD 3.5 billion loan and for unlocking the next support program.

From an EU integration standpoint, public procurement falls under the first negotiating cluster — Fundamentals. This is, in other words, one of the reforms partners expect from Ukraine first.

The new law introduces a number of sound European practices and partially reorients the approach. Chief among these are new procurement methods — for example, open framework agreements that can cover not only goods but also services and works, innovation partnerships, and joint procurement. European rules are, in many respects, considerably more flexible.

However, the working group made a deliberate effort to preserve the achievements of Ukrainian procurement, since in some areas our practices actually exceed European standards. Notably, while paper-based tenders still exist in the EU, the new law retains Ukraine’s 100% digitalization. For certain provisions, a gradual transition and separate methodologies were built in — detailed guidelines to be developed by the Government. This applies, for example, to non-price criteria, which have been rarely used in Ukrainian procurement practice.

Everyone involved in drafting this document worked hard to ensure it was not merely a translation of European directives into Ukrainian, but a genuine update of the rules — one designed to increase the efficiency of Ukrainian procurement and, in part, to make life easier for those who conduct and participate in it.

Changes contracting authorities (did not) see coming

Over the past four years, procurement professionals have had an eventful and unpredictable working life. The wartime procurement regulation — the Government resolution governing procurement during the state of war — was amended more than 45 times. That means, on average, nearly every month brought new rules that required adjusting processes and workflows. Understandably, yet another round of changes is not something contracting authorities greet with enthusiasm. But the new law is precisely intended to bring stability to the sector.

It preserves the Cabinet of Ministers’ authority to set procurement-specific rules during martial law. However, any exceptions to the competitive tender requirement will now require approval from the relevant Verkhovna Rada committee. This should serve as a meaningful safeguard, ensuring that such exceptions are introduced sparingly and only when genuinely necessary. Broadly speaking, sector regulation should be governed by the Law — and that will deliver the predictability and stability the sector needs.

In many ways, the new law is designed to make life easier for contracting authorities, in large part thanks to the flexibility of European approaches. It raises thresholds and denominates them in euros — meaning that, in practice, more transactions can be made directly. Procurement through Prozorro Market also becomes optional for above-threshold procurements. In recent years, food, medical goods and medicines, and New Ukrainian School supplies could only be procured through the electronic catalogue. Going forward, contracting authorities will be free to choose whichever method works best for them. And for those who do prefer the catalogue, it will now cover services as well. Similarly, the new procedures are not mandates — they are simply additional options. The core toolkit for contracting authorities, and the principles for using it, remain fundamentally unchanged: direct procurement for lower-value transactions, and the option to use the marketplace or open tenders for higher-value contracts. 

Another long-awaited development: contracting authorities will be able to engage outsourced procurement specialists. This is especially significant for small contracting authorities — a village kindergarten, for example, where procurement is typically handled by an accountant with minimal additional pay. The numbers bear this out: as Deputy Director of the Ministry of Economy’s Public Procurement Department Tetiana Mishta noted at last year’s Prozorro Awards, 90% of contracting authorities in Ukraine are small entities. Previously, procurement could only be conducted — and responsibility borne — by an in-house designated officer. That work can now be contracted out to professional procurement specialists. The law also makes it explicitly clear that designated officers bear no responsibility for direct procurement, only for publishing reports on it.

Significant changes for businesses

First and foremost, businesses will now be able to challenge decisions before the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine in procurement categories where this was previously unavailable, which in 2025 accounted for nearly every second competitive procurement, covering all those conducted through Prozorro Market.

Companies will also benefit from more favorable conditions for participating in tenders: more time to prepare bids, machine-readable tender documentation, the ability to submit alternative proposals, and more situations in which contracting authorities are permitted to allow corrections to bids compared with the previous Law.

Special attention was given to the construction sector, which accounts for over 20% of the total contract value in Prozorro in 2025–2026. Tender documentation in this sector is now required to be published in cost-estimate software formats, making it easier for businesses to prepare their submissions.

The law also introduces a series of safeguards against contracting authorities imposing excessive requirements on bidders. For fuel procurement, any additional documents beyond those required by national standards are now prohibited. The Law also bars contracting authorities from requiring personal identity documents as part of bids. 

Also, contracting authorities are prohibited from announcing a new procurement identical to a previous one before canceling the original. This protects businesses from situations where a contracting authority simply abandons a procurement in which an unwanted bidder won. 

What comes next?

It is important to understand that adoption of the law is not the finish line. We still need to receive feedback from the European Commission on its compliance with EU requirements — and further amendments will almost certainly be required. Ukraine has committed to full harmonization with European rules by September 2027.

Additionally, the law enters into force in nine months, the window available to develop secondary legislation and implement the necessary technical changes in Prozorro.

A separate priority is communicating the changes. It will be essential for the Ministry of Economy to find the resources to explain to contracting authorities that these are not changes made solely for EU integration — they are changes made for them. Most importantly, contracting authorities need detailed, practical guidance on working under the new rules before they take effect. The same message needs to reach businesses and other stakeholders.

To sum up: a less prominent but no less historic shift in Ukrainian public procurement has begun. It is gratifying that this is yet another example of successful collaboration between the state and civil society. Is this a perfect law? Of course not — there is always room for improvement. But the people who wrote it genuinely did everything in their power to address as many existing problems and pain points as possible, and to truly strengthen public procurement in Ukraine. The recent news pointing to the potential opening of the first negotiating cluster with the EU as early as June suggests we are on the right path. Since procurement falls squarely within that cluster, the timing of this Law could not be better.

This material is funded by the European Union. Its content is the sole responsibility of Transparency International Ukraine and does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.