Are you curious about public procurement from around the world? What does it look like? How does it differ from Australia and New Zealand? Gary Mander, Senior Manager of Supply Chain & Operations, Public Procurement Advisory at EY, dives right in with this global series. This week, he’s exploring Estonia.
Scale of public procurement in Estonia
In 2023, Estonia spent €5.8 billion (approx. $10.4 billion) on public procurement, which was procured across a total of 8,975 processes. There are nearly 700 contracting authority entities in Estonia.
Estonia spent approximately 18 percent of their GDP in 2023 via the public procurement process. So far, in 2025 (up to the end of May), nearly 7,000 procedures have already commenced, and 6,135 companies have participated in a tender process.
The law
Public procurement in Estonia is governed by the 2017 Public Procurement Act. The Public Procurement Act is designed to ‘ensure the transparent, expedient and economical use of the contracting authority’s financial resources, equal treatment of persons and effective utilisation of competition in public procurement’.
Since 2022, this has been extended to cover ‘social considerations, implementation of innovation and environmentally friendly solutions.’
Thresholds
Estonia is covered under EU procurement law, and so the EU thresholds are used for above-threshold requirements. Below the EU thresholds, a ‘simplified procurement procedure’ is used (which is the same as a national procedure used in many other member states).
The specifics of the simplified procurement procedure are covered under Article 125 of the Procurement Act.
Goods and Services – Between €30,001 (approx. $54,000) and €60,000 (approx. $108,000) (note that a 10-day period is allowed for tender submissions)
Works – Between €60,001 (approx. $108,000) and €150,000 (approx. $270,000) (note that a 15-day period is allowed for tender submissions)
National tenders are managed for requirements above the simplified procurement thresholds but below the EU thresholds. Below the EU threshold, there is a minimum 10-day tender period for Goods and Services, and a minimum 15-day tender period for Works.
Publication
Tenders are advertised in the Estonian Public Procurement Register.
Procurement disputes
Disputes relating to public procurement outcomes can be made to the Public Procurement Review Committee, which operates within the Ministry of Finance.
For below-threshold procurement, the cost of requesting a review is €640 (approx. $1,148), and above threshold it is €1,280 (approx. $2,296).
Requests for a review must be brought within 10 days.
Interesting nuances
In 2022, 87 percent of all tender processes in Estonia were awarded on the basis of lowest cost.
The Ministry of Finance has been critical of the quality of data being submitted into the Public Procurement Register, stating that ‘it is important that contracting authorities comply with the requirements arising from the Public Procurement Act when submitting data’.
The Public Procurement Register provides contract management options to the contracting authorities (i.e. a post-management environment for contracts concluded on the basis of public procurements).
All public procurement data is available to download on a monthly basis (i.e. volume of procedures, number of contracts awarded, etc.)
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