Affidamento diretto and the sotto-soglia regime (Italy)

The bands

Article 50(1) sets out how contracts below the EU thresholds of article 14 are awarded:

• (a) works under €150,000 — direct award, even without consulting several operators, ensuring that the operators chosen have documented previous experience suited to the performance, including operators drawn from lists or registers kept by the buyer;
• (b) services and supplies, including engineering, architecture and design services, under €140,000 — the same;
• (c) works from €150,000 to under €1 million — negotiated procedure without a notice, consulting at least five operators identified from market surveys or lists;
• (d) works from €1 million up to the EU threshold — at least ten operators, unless the buyer chooses an ordinary procedure;
• (e) services and supplies from €140,000 up to the EU threshold — at least five operators.

Note the arithmetic. The EU thresholds for 2026-2027 are €5,404,000 for works, €140,000 for supplies, services and design contests awarded by central government authorities and €216,000 for sub-central authorities. So for a municipality the negotiated-procedure band under (e) runs from €140,000 to €216,000, while for a ministry it barely exists.

The rules attached to them

Framework. Article 48 applies the principles of Book I, Parts I and II; requires ordinary procedures where the buyer establishes a certain cross-border interest; preserves the obligations to use Consip and MEPA; and applies the rest of the code except where this Part derogates.

Who gets invited. Article 50(2) sends lists and market surveys to Allegato II.1, and forbids selecting who to invite by drawing lots or any other random method except in specific, specifically reasoned situations where no other method is workable. Buyers must publish on their institutional site the names of the operators consulted. The 2024 corrective added article 50(2-bis): the launch of a consultation under (c), (d) and (e) must also be published on the site.

Rotation. Article 49 bans awarding to the outgoing contractor across two consecutive awards covering the same merchandise sector, the same category of works or the same sector of services. A buyer may band awards by value and apply the ban within each band. Three escapes: article 49(4), as rewritten in 2024, allows re-inviting or directly appointing the incumbent in reasoned cases by reference to the structure of the market and the actual absence of alternatives, after verifying accurate performance and the quality delivered; article 49(5) disapplies rotation where the market survey placed no limit on the number of qualified operators invited; article 49(6) allows derogation for direct awards under €5,000.

Checks. Article 52 lets operators attest their requirements by dichiarazione sostitutiva for direct awards under €40,000, with the buyer verifying, possibly by annual sampling. If the check fails: termination, calling of any definitive guarantee, notification to ANAC, and suspension from that buyer's procedures for one to twelve months.

Guarantees. Article 53 removes the provisional guarantee as a rule; it may be required only in (c), (d) and (e) procedures for particular reasons stated in the decision to contract or the notice, and then cannot exceed 1 per cent. The definitive guarantee may be waived with reasons and is otherwise 5 per cent. The 2024 corrective added that below-threshold guarantees get neither the reductions of article 106(8) nor the increases of article 117(2).

Anomalous offers. Article 54 requires automatic exclusion of anomalous offers where the lowest-price criterion is used for works or services below the thresholds with no certain cross-border interest and at least five offers are admitted; it does not apply to (a) and (b). The method comes from Allegato II.2, either stated in the tender documents or drawn by lot.

Timing and publication. Article 55 requires the contract to be signed within thirty days of award and disapplies the standstill periods of article 18(3) and (4). Article 50(6) allows early execution once the awardee's requirements are verified, and article 50(7) a certificato di regolare esecuzione within three months in place of formal testing. Notices are published nationally under article 85 without transmission to the EU Publications Office, and the results notice must name the operators invited in (c), (d) and (e) procedures.

Digitalisation applies throughout. ANAC has confirmed that purchases below €5,000 remain subject to the digitalisation obligations — the €5,000 derogation in legge 296/2006 concerns spending containment, not digitalisation.

What to do about it

Get onto the buyers' lists. For (a) and (b) the selection mechanism is essentially "someone on a list with documented comparable experience", and for (c) to (e) the invitation lists are built from the same registers and from market surveys. Registering on the elenchi of the buyers you care about is a higher-yield activity than polishing a bid.

Watch the buyers' own websites, not only the national feeds. The names of consulted operators and the launch of consultations are published there, and that tells you who is competing in your sector and when a survey is open.

Read rotation as an entry route. As an incumbent you can be locked out of the next award in the same sector; as an outsider that is precisely your opening — and the buyer's escape route under article 49(4) requires it to justify keeping the incumbent.

Finally, below €40,000 the self-declaration lets you be contracted quickly, but a failed check costs you the contract, the guarantee and up to a year with that buyer. Declare only what your FVOE can actually prove.

Related terms

• Codice dei contratti pubblici (D.Lgs. 36/2023) — Italy's public contracts code
• MEPA and Consip — Italy's electronic marketplace and national central purchasing body
• FVOE — Fascicolo Virtuale dell'Operatore Economico (Italy)
• CIG — Codice Identificativo Gara (Italy)

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