Lots in public tenders: how to bid for a slice instead of the whole

A 12 million euro contract to clean every school in a region is out of reach for a company with thirty cleaners. The same contract split into eight geographic lots of 1.5 million is not. Lots are the mechanism that turns a large public contract into several smaller ones, and understanding them is how smaller companies get their first serious public work.

Why lots exist

Directive 2014/24/EU pushes buyers toward lots. Article 46 does not force a split, but it obliges the buyer to explain, in the procurement documents or the report, why a contract was not divided. This is the "divide or explain" rule, and it was written with small and medium-sized companies in mind. Several countries went further and made division the default in national law, with exceptions that must be justified.

A lot is a separately awardable part of a contract. The split can be:

• Geographic: one lot per region, city or site.
• By type of work or product: one lot for electrical works, one for plumbing; one for laptops, one for monitors.
• By quantity: the same product in several batches so that no single supplier has to deliver all of it.
• By phase: design in one lot, construction in another.

Each lot has its own estimated value Estimated value The buyer's own estimate of what the contract will cost, before tax; a ceiling more than a price. Full entry , its own award decision and, usually, its own contract. The notice lists them with a number and a title; on Aperlena the lots appear in the tender's key facts when the source publishes them.

What the notice tells you about lots

Three questions decide your strategy, and the notice answers all three:

1. May you bid for one lot, several, or all? Most notices allow tenders for any number of lots. Some restrict bidders to a maximum number of lots they may bid for.
2. Is there a cap on lots awarded to one bidder? Article 46(2) lets the buyer limit the number of lots a single tenderer may win, even if it submitted the best tender for more. The notice must state the cap and the objective rules used to decide which lots that bidder gets. This is the rule that guarantees the market is not cornered by one company.
3. Can lots be combined? Article 46(3) allows the buyer to award several lots together to one bidder when that combination scores better than the sum of the separate winners. If the notice allows combined bids, you may offer a discount conditional on winning a group of lots.

Read these three lines before anything else. A bidder who prepares eight lot bids and then discovers the cap is two has wasted six.

How lots are evaluated

Each lot is evaluated on its own. The selection criteria are usually set per lot, which matters: the turnover or references required for a 1.5 million lot are a fraction of those for the whole contract. Check whether the buyer requires the selection minimum for the largest lot you bid for or for the sum of all lots bid; both practices exist, and the second one can knock you out of a combination you could deliver.

The award criteria also apply per lot. Your price for lot 3 competes only with other prices for lot 3. This is why a lot strategy is about choosing the lots where your position is strongest, not about spreading yourself across all of them.

Where combined bids are allowed, the buyer compares two scenarios: the best separate tender for each lot, and the best combination. The combined offer wins only if it is better overall, so a conditional discount has to be real enough to beat the sum of specialists.

Choosing your lots

Four tests, in order:

• Capacity. Can you deliver this lot with what you have today, plus what you can hire in the mobilisation period? Winning two lots you can only staff for one is a contract performance failure, and those are recorded and can be used against you in the next tender.
• Geography. Travel time is cost. A lot 40 minutes from your base beats a slightly larger one three hours away, once you price the hours.
• Competition. The award archive shows who won each lot last time and against how many bidders. A lot that went to an incumbent against one other tender is contestable; a lot with nine bidders is a price war.
• Fit. Bid for the lot where your references are strongest. Evaluators read references per lot, and a bid backed by three directly comparable projects beats a generic one.

Then decide whether to go for one lot or several. Several lot bids share a lot of paperwork - one ESPD, one set of company documents - so the marginal cost of a second lot is lower than the first. But each lot needs its own price and, usually, its own technical offer, and a weak second bid can cost you credibility with the same evaluators who read your strong first one.

A worked example: eight lots, one bidder

A regional government tenders school cleaning in eight geographic lots between 900,000 and 1.6 million euros each. The notice allows bids for any number of lots, caps awards at three per bidder, and allows a combined discount for bidders winning two or more adjacent lots.

A cleaning company with 120 staff in the eastern half of the region reads the award archive for the previous contract: lots 1 to 4 in the west went to a national group against two bidders each; lots 5 to 8 in the east went to three different local firms, two of them against a single competitor. Its choice is clear before any price is written: bid for lots 5, 6 and 7, where its staff already live, where competition was weakest, and where three adjacent lots unlock the combined discount. Lot 8 is ninety minutes away and goes unbid.

The bid carries one company file, one ESPD, three prices and three short delivery plans, each naming the supervisor who will run that lot. It wins 5 and 6 outright and loses 7 by two points. Next time, with two lots of references from this buyer and the cap still at three, lot 7 is the obvious target. That is what a lot strategy looks like: not the whole contract, the right third of it.

Lots as a market entry

For a company new to public procurement, a single lot in a large contract is the best first bid available. The buyer is large and pays on time; the lot is sized for a company like yours; the incumbent for the whole contract may not even bid per lot; and a win puts a serious reference on your record.

Look for contracts where the number of lots is high and the values are modest, in sectors where local presence matters: cleaning, maintenance, catering, transport, care services, minor works. Aperlena's search lets you filter open tenders by sector and country, and the tender page shows the lot structure when the source provides it.

What happens after the award

Lots are awarded separately, so the same notice can produce several winners, several contracts and several award dates. If you win one lot and lose another, you have a contract and, at the same time, a standstill period on the lot you lost. Both run in parallel.

Lot contracts also recompete separately. A buyer that awarded eight lots in 2024 will re-tender them around the same time in 2027, and the recompete radar tracks each one. Winning one lot this time is the best possible preparation for winning three next time.