Software for authorities, social sector bodies and public institutions rarely fails on the technology. It fails on documentation, on contract templates and on requirements nobody read early enough. This article sorts the three fields that count: procurement law, accessibility and evidence.
Public buyers do not purchase freely. Which procedure applies depends on the estimated contract value. Above the EU thresholds, European procurement law applies. Below them, the rules of the federal government and the individual states do. Anyone who wants to bid should first know which of the two they are in.
The European Commission resets the thresholds every two years. Since 1 January 2026 the values from Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2152 of 22 October 2025 apply. All figures are net:
Compared with 2024 and 2025 the values have fallen slightly. For software this means in practice that a mid-sized project is quickly above the threshold and goes out to tender across Europe.
The procurement acceleration act (Vergabebeschleunigungsgesetz) came into force on 1 July 2026. It amends the act against restraints of competition, the procurement regulation and the utilities regulation, among others. The new rules apply to procedures started after that day. Procedures already running stay under the old law. Three points matter for bidders:
The last point is the most interesting. Where sovereignty may be a criterion, what counts is where the system runs, whether it can be handed over and whether it survives without its maker. Those are not marketing questions but architecture questions, and they are settled in the bid rather than later.
Public buyers as a rule do not negotiate contracts freely. They use the supplementary contract terms for the procurement of IT services, known as EVB-IT. For federal authorities they are mandatory, both below and above the European thresholds. The obligation follows from the administrative provisions to section 55 of the federal budget code. Many states have equivalent rules in their own budget codes. The templates are agreed between the federal government and industry, with the digital association Bitkom representing the supplier side.
Which contract type is used decides acceptance, liability and maintenance. The ones that matter most for software are:
Writing a bid without having read the contract type means costing in the dark. Between a development contract with formal acceptance and a cloud service with an availability commitment there are worlds of difference in risk.
Accessibility is often treated as a feature to be added later. In law it is a requirement of the product. And there are two separate regimes that regularly get mixed up.
For public bodies of the German federal government, section 12a of the equal opportunities act (BGG) applies. It covers websites and mobile applications including intranet offerings, plus electronically supported administrative processes with their electronic case handling and record keeping. Exceptions are narrow. A body may refrain where accessible design would place a disproportionate burden on it.
The detail sits in the accessible information technology regulation, BITV 2.0. Two points from it are regularly underestimated in a project:
On top of that, annex 2 of the regulation sets requirements for German sign language and plain language. Read after acceptance, that means rework.
The harmonised standard behind section 3 BITV 2.0 is EN 301 549. The relevant version is V3.2.1 of March 2021. Implementing Decision (EU) 2021/1339 was published in the Official Journal on 12 August 2021. After a transition period ending on 12 February 2022, that version is binding for websites, apps and electronically supported administrative processes of federal public bodies. For the web, the standard restates the WCAG 2.1 success criteria at levels A and AA.
In practice this means testing against a named catalogue. That is good for both sides, because it removes the argument about scope. We therefore treat these criteria as acceptance criteria and not as a recommendation.
The accessibility strengthening act (BFSG) is a different regime. It has been in force since 28 June 2025 and applies to products and services for consumers, among them software, e-books and electronic commerce. The exemption for microenterprises applies only to services and not to products. Breaches of the accessibility requirements can be fined up to 100,000 euros under section 37.
The case in between matters most in practice. Anyone who supplies an application both to an authority and to consumers has to serve both regimes. That is usually less work than feared, because both aim at the same technical core. It just has to be decided early.
Procurement-ready does not mean the software is special. It means every commitment can be evidenced. The same statement without evidence is worthless in a procedure. Five points decide this again and again.
The last point ties closely to NIS2. A service provider working for an entity in scope gets that entity's requirements passed down, because the directive expressly requires securing the supply chain. What that means in detail is set out in NIS2: are you in scope?
Social sector bodies, foundations and associations work under funding logic, evidence obligations and tight budgets. The requirements on documentation and accessibility are the same. The resources are not. We develop software for this sector ourselves and scope engagements there accordingly. The positions are set out openly on the Services page.
The figures in this article have a cut-off date. The EU thresholds are reset every two years and the current ones have applied since 1 January 2026. For the below-threshold procurement rules (UVgO) a reform draft from the federal ministry for economic affairs has been on the table since 30 June 2026. It is being agreed between the federal government and the states and is not yet in force. Anyone preparing a procedure should therefore check the position on the day of preparation and not on the day of the last tender.
Procurement-ready software is a question of preparation, not of luck. Knowing the contract type, treating accessibility as an acceptance criterion and being able to evidence every commitment settles most of the risk before the bid goes out. Further answers on pricing, contracts and where data is held sit under Knowledge. If a procedure is coming up, a short first call is the quickest way.
A reply within two working days, with a concrete scoping proposal.