Part II Preparation and vendor selection
Chapter 12: Public procurement of software
For a designated information system, you need an opinion from the Office of the Chief Architect of eGovernment (OHA) regardless of the contract price, and you need it before the tender is announced. Choose the type of procedure according to the financial threshold and how clear the solution is. Plan for months up to a year for the procedure itself. A negotiated procedure without prior publication citing “exclusive rights” or urgency will not hold up if you caused the dependency or the urgency yourself.
This chapter is not legal advice. It describes legislation and case law as of October 2026. Have a lawyer or a public procurement specialist review the tender documentation and the draft contract.
Ask for the OHA opinion before the tender
When acquiring a designated information system or changing its architecture, a public authority may not carry out the project without a positive opinion from the Digital and Information Agency (DIA), or a government decision. The obligation “is no longer tied to any financial threshold” DIA, OHA approval. A system is designated if it uses the basic registers or provides services to them, is linked to such a system, or serves at least 5,000 users a year with a verified electronic identity Act No. 365/2000 Coll..
Central government bodies must also inform OHA about ICT expenditure over CZK 20 million under Government Resolution No. 86/2020 DIA, OHA approval. The opinion usually arrives within 30 days, or within 60 days for complex requests, and you must complete and submit the request within 90 days of creating it in ISDŘ, the state register for long-term management of public administration information systems DIA, ISSS 2026. The most common mistake: requesting the opinion only after the contract has been announced.
A piece of the state puzzle, not a standalone house
OHA assesses consistency with the Information Strategy of the Czech Republic (Informační koncepce ČR) and the national architecture. In practice, this means your system must fit in among the state’s other systems. It should use shared services, such as the registers and electronic identity, instead of creating its own copies. This is exactly what the Supreme Audit Office (NKÚ) criticized: 2,923 of 5,118 line-of-business systems create local copies of data from the basic registers NKÚ, audit conclusion KZ 23/05. Involve your authority’s architect in the brief from day one.
Plan the budget for the system’s entire lifetime, including operations. This is required by the 3E principle, from January 1, 2027, in Act No. 231/2025 Coll. Act No. 231/2025 Coll.(chapter 5).
The type of procedure depends on the threshold and the clarity of the requirements
The threshold determines how strict a procedure you must use. Depending on how clear the requirements are, you then choose a suitable procedure from those the law allows:
- clear requirements: an open procedure, or for smaller contracts a simplified below-threshold procedure,
- an unclear solution: a competitive procedure with negotiation or a competitive dialogue,
- a large modular system: a framework agreement with several vendors and mini-competitions (chapter 10).
You can award discovery separately as a small contract and use the results in the next tender. But watch out: the Public Procurement Act (ZZVZ) bans splitting a contract (Section 35).
| Threshold | Amount | Applies from |
|---|---|---|
| Small-scale public contract (VZMR) | up to CZK 3,000,000 | April 3, 2025 |
| Above-threshold: the state (ministries and central authorities) | from CZK 3,491,000 | January 1, 2026 |
| Above-threshold: local governments and other contracting authorities | from CZK 5,386,000 | January 1, 2026 |
| Above-threshold: utilities contracting entities | from CZK 10,773,000 | January 1, 2026 |
| Contract on the buyer profile | over CZK 1,000,000 (if not in the Register of Contracts) | April 3, 2025 |
| Register of Contracts | over CZK 50,000 | Act No. 340/2015 Coll. |
The small-scale threshold for construction works is CZK 9 million; the above-threshold limit for construction works is CZK 134,764,000 for all contracting authorities. The current wording of ZZVZ applies until December 31, 2026; from January 1, 2027, the part of Act No. 469/2024 Coll. on reserved contracts for social enterprises takes effect, which in practice does not change IT contracts.
Amounts under the Public Procurement Act and Government Regulation No. 541/2025 Coll. ZZVZ and Government Regulation No. 541/2025 Coll..
- Plan and budget1–3 months
- OHA opinion30–60 days
- Preliminary market consultation1–2 months
- Discovery2–8 weeksoptional
- Tender documentation1–2 months
- Procurement procedure1–12 months
- Totalwithout objections, roughly 5 months to just under 2 years5–23 months
- Plan and budget 1–3 months
- Link to the information strategy, cost-benefit analysis, budget for the system’s whole lifecycle.
- OHA opinion 30–60 days
- Usually 30 days from submission, 60 days for complex requests (statutory time limit).
- Preliminary market consultation 1–2 months
- Checks that the brief is understandable, the qualification requirements are proportionate, and the schedule is realistic (Section 33 of ZZVZ).
- Discovery 2–8 weeks
- A separate small contract; all bidders in the next tender receive its outputs.
- Tender documentation 1–2 months
- Including the draft contract, license, acceptance deadlines, and reserved changes.
- Procurement procedure 1–12 months
- Small-scale 1–2 months, simplified below-threshold 2–3, open 4–6, competitive procedure with negotiation or competitive dialogue 6–12 months.
Not in the total
- Objections and ÚOHS, if they come + months
- A petition to ÚOHS within 10 days of the objections being rejected; the proceedings then take months.
- Contract and Register of Contracts days to weeks
- The contract takes effect at the earliest upon publication in the Register of Contracts.
JŘBU will not save you if you caused the dependency yourself
A negotiated procedure without prior publication (JŘBU) on the grounds of exclusive rights holds up only if the exclusivity objectively exists and the contracting authority did not cause it itself NSS, 5 Afs 42/2012. In 2025, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) added that the contracting authority is also responsible for the exclusivity if it had “real and financially reasonable means” to end it CJEU, C-578/23. The case concerned ADIS, the Czech tax administration’s information system, for which the Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS) imposed a final fine in May 2026 (chapter 24).
Likewise, extreme urgency that the contracting authority caused itself does not hold up. How do you prevent this? Secure the rights and the code already in the first contract (chapter 11). For a legacy system, document the steps toward ending the dependency and prepare the tender in time.
Digitalization of building permits before ÚOHS (MMR, 2023–2026)
In September 2023, ÚOHS canceled the open procedure: the draft contract contained no deadlines for acceptance, and it made the use of standard software subject to the ministry’s consent without stating within what time limit the ministry would decide ÚOHS, S0321/2023. The courts confirmed this in 2025.
In November 2023, the Ministry of Regional Development (MMR) then concluded a contract in a JŘBU, citing extreme urgency. ÚOHS prohibited performance of the contract because the ministry had caused the urgency itself ÚOHS, S0788/2023. The Supreme Administrative Court (NSS) returned the judgment confirming the ban for reconsideration NSS, 3 As 58/2025, and in June 2026 the regional court confirmed the ban again ČTK, June 2026. MMR received a fine of about CZK 1 million for the unlawful JŘBU. In July 2026, the court annulled only its amount, because ÚOHS had wrongly taken an aggravating circumstance into account when setting it. The breach of the law stands, and ÚOHS will impose the fine again ČTK, July 22, 2026.
The lesson: inaction during preparation cannot be made up for with a negotiated procedure. Chapter 20 describes how the system’s launch turned out.
Source: ÚOHS, S0321/2023 (tender canceled), ÚOHS, S0788/2023 (ban on contract performance), NSS, 3 As 58/2025-46, ČTK, July 22, 2026 (fine)
Tender conditions must withstand objections
Unclear or impossible conditions can lead to objections and subsequently to proceedings before ÚOHS. A vendor can file objections against the tender conditions until the end of the deadline for bids (Section 242 of ZZVZ), and until you decide on them, you may not conclude the contract (Section 246). After the objections are rejected, the vendor has 10 days to file a petition with ÚOHS (Section 251).
The best prevention is thorough preparation: a preliminary market consultation (chapter 8), factual answers to questions sent to all bidders, and quality in the evaluation based on DIA evaluation cards (chapter 9).
| How it goes wrong | How to do it right |
|---|---|
| How it goes wrongThe request for an OHA opinion only after the contract is announced. | How to do it rightInformation strategy, OHA (30–60 days), market consultation, and only then the tender documentation. |
| How it goes wrongA schedule of “make it quick,” with delays handled through amendments. | How to do it rightA realistic schedule and reserved changes (Section 100) in the tender documentation. |
| How it goes wrongCriteria copied from the last tender, 100% price. | How to do it rightQuality based on DIA evaluation cards with described scoring levels, with a 50–70% weight. |
| How it goes wrongEvasive answers to bidders’ questions. | How to do it rightFactual answers to everyone, unclear conditions corrected before the deadline ends. |
| How it goes wrongSupport and further development in a JŘBU, “because the vendor has the rights.” | How to do it rightRights and code from the first contract; if they are missing, obtain them and prepare a tender. |
| How it goes wrongThe system makes its own copies of the registers. | How to do it rightIntegration with the state’s shared services and consistency with the national architecture. |
What a company can take from this
Even without a legal obligation, companies benefit from adopting three practices from public procurement: ask the market before you request proposals, evaluate quality against levels described in advance, and have the rights and the code from the first contract.