Public tenders in Italy: the numbers
Italy's public procurement market accounts for approximately 12% of the country's gross domestic product. It is a structural component of the Italian economy, and also one of the most difficult to interpret.
A complete picture is available in the ANAC Annual Report, although it remains buried in hundreds of pages of tables. The figures below reconstruct that picture, one question at a time.
How large is Italy's public procurement market?
In 2025, Italian public contracts worth €40,000 or more reached a total value of €309.7 billion, across 287,421 procurement procedures.
Of this total, approximately €20.8 billion relates to contracts financed through Italy's National Recovery and Resilience Plan, known in Italy as the PNRR.
The market's value is increasing faster than the number of procedures. In other words, it is not only the number of tenders being launched that is growing: their average economic size is increasing as well.
What do public authorities buy: supplies, services or works?
Supplies were the largest segment of the market by value in 2025. They accounted for €145.4 billion, ahead of services at €110.0 billion and works at €54.3 billion.
| Category | Procedures | Value | Share of total value | Change, 2024–2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Supplies | 100,156 | €145.4 billion | 46.9% | +25.2% |
| Services | 123,054 | €110.0 billion | 35.5% | +15.9% |
| Works | 64,211 | €54.3 billion | 17.6% | −10.6% |
| Total | 287,421 | €309.7 billion | 100% | +13.9% |
The difference between the two shares is significant. Supply contracts account for 46.9% of the market by value, but only 34.8% of all procedures. This indicates that they tend to be larger contracts, with an average value of approximately €1.45 million, compared with around €0.89 million for service contracts.
Direction matters as much as scale. Supplies are growing, works are declining, and the centre of gravity of public spending is shifting from what is built to what is purchased.
How are public contracts awarded?
The answer depends on how the market is measured.
By value, the market is dominated by the open procedure, which alone accounts for 54.3% of total procurement value. By number of procedures, however, direct awards dominate, representing 55.3% of all cases.
The contradiction is only apparent. A relatively small number of large contracts awarded through open procedures accounts for most of the market's value. At the same time, a very large number of small direct awards dominates the overall count while contributing very little to total public spending.
By value, direct awards account for only 5.1% of the market.
Anyone looking only at the number of procedures might conclude that the market consists mainly of small direct awards. Anyone looking at total value would reach exactly the opposite conclusion.
One further trend is particularly important. Open and restricted procedures, the most competitive and formally structured segment of the market, recorded stronger growth than any other award method. Their value increased by 24.2% and 43.5%, respectively, driven primarily by procurement in the healthcare sector.
Where is public spending concentrated?
Public procurement spending is highly concentrated in a limited number of regions.
By total value, Lazio ranks first, followed by Lombardy and Tuscany. The ranking by number of procedures is only slightly different: Lazio remains in first place, almost level with Lombardy, while Veneto ranks third.
Lazio and Lombardy alone account for more than one-third of Italy's total public procurement spending.
Who launches public tenders, and how many contracting authorities are there?
There are far fewer contracting authorities than in the past.
As at 31 December 2025, a total of 3,680 public authorities were qualified to manage procurement procedures. This is a consequence of the contracting-authority qualification system, which has concentrated procurement activity in a smaller number of public-sector organisations.
The market therefore has fewer public-sector buyers, but those buyers are larger and more structured. In practice, each contracting authority now manages greater procurement volumes and more complex procedures than in the past.
Which supplies account for the most spending?
The two supply categories with the greatest impact on procurement value in 2025 were both related to the healthcare sector: pharmaceutical products and medical equipment.
Pharmaceutical products, the largest category, increased by 65.4% compared with 2024, driven by particularly high-value contracts.
The fact that pharmaceuticals and medical devices are the two largest areas of supply expenditure shows the extent to which the healthcare sector is becoming a major driver of Italian public-sector demand.
How many procurement procedures are processed digitally?
Almost all of them.
The National Public Contracts Database, known by its Italian acronym BDNCP, is the infrastructure used to record public procurement procedures in Italy. It registers more than five million procedures every year, including lower-value contracts processed through certified e-procurement platforms.
More than any other figure, this illustrates the true scale of the market. Five million procedures are far too many for any organisation to monitor individually and manually.
What do these figures tell us?
Taken together, the 2025 data describe a market that is not becoming simpler: it is becoming more concentrated and more rigid.
The market is growing faster in value than in number and is increasingly weighted towards supplies. It favours competitive, formal procedures managed by a smaller number of larger, qualified contracting authorities.
For companies participating in public tenders, this creates a clear operational reality.
The procedures that matter most are larger and more demanding in terms of documentation and compliance, and they are managed by contracting authorities that are raising the bar.
The volume of information that companies must monitor, assess and manage does not decrease simply because the number of contracting authorities has fallen. It increases with the value and complexity of the contracts being put out to tender.
This is, quite simply, no longer a market that can be monitored and managed manually.
Frequently asked questions
What is a public tender?
A public tender is the procedure through which a public authority selects a supplier for the purchase of goods, services or works, in accordance with the transparency and competition rules established by public procurement law.
What is a CIG?
The CIG, or Codice Identificativo Gara, is an alphanumeric Tender Identification Code generated through ANAC's systems. It uniquely identifies each procurement procedure and is the reference used to track and count public tenders in Italy.
What is a contracting authority?
A contracting authority is the public-sector organisation that launches and manages a procurement procedure. It may be a public administration, a public healthcare organisation or a central purchasing body. Since 2023, contracting authorities in Italy have been required to obtain specific qualifications in order to manage procurement procedures above certain thresholds.
From what contract value are procedures included in these data?
The figures cover public contracts worth €40,000 or more. This is the threshold used in the ANAC Annual Report to measure the size and composition of Italy's public procurement market.
What is the BDNCP?
The Banca Dati Nazionale dei Contratti Pubblici, or National Public Contracts Database, is the infrastructure managed by ANAC that collects data on public procurement procedures across Italy. It is the source of the figures presented in this article.
Source: ANAC annual report to Parliament (April 2026) and the National Database of Public Contracts (BDNCP). Values refer to contracts worth €40,000 or more, with data updated as of end of January 2026.
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