A foreign contractor looking at Montenegrin public work usually asks two questions in the wrong order. The first is how to win. The second is what happens when someone else does.
The second question is where the statute is most useful, because Montenegro gives an unsuccessful bidder something many systems do not: an appeal that stops the procedure until it is decided. It also charges for it — one per cent of the estimated value — and refunds that charge if you are right.
Two amendments in 2026 shortened a deadline and narrowed who may complain. Both are worth knowing before you bid.
Sources, checked on 20 September 2026: Zakon o javnim nabavkama, "Sl. list CG" 74/2019 of 30 December 2019, shown as in force, with amendments at 3/2023 of 10 January 2023, 11/2023 of 27 January 2023, 98/2026 of 9 July 2026 (registarski broj 1777) and 132/2026 of 9 September 2026 (registarski broj 2264, EPA 1174 XXVIII, adopted 4 September 2026); both 2026 acts enter into force on the eighth day after publication. The consolidated text used is the informative consolidation published under the EU Rule of Law support programme (EUROL 4), which states it is not an official document; it additionally lists a layer at 084/24 of 6 September 2024 which the 2026 amending acts do not recite in their own chain, so that layer should be confirmed against the Gazette before it is relied on. The 2026 amending acts were read from the Official Gazette's own page images. Articles cited: 26, 27, 87, 108, 183, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 192 and 193. This page states Montenegrin law.
Where the full procedure starts
Article 26, as amended in 2023, sorts procurement into six bands by estimated annual value:
| Band | Subject | Estimated annual value |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | goods, services and works | up to €8,000 |
| 2 | goods and services | €8,000 to under €25,000 |
| 3 | works | €8,000 to under €40,000 |
| 4 | goods and services | €25,000 and above |
| 5 | works | €40,000 and above |
| 6 | goods, services and works | at or above the EU value thresholds |
Bands 1 to 3 are simple procurements. Bands 4 to 6 are public procurement proper, and Article 27 obliges the contracting authority to run them under the Act. The sixth band is the interesting one for a larger contractor: Montenegro already carries the EU thresholds as a category of its own, published by the Ministry.
Two rules in Article 27 protect the bands. The contracting authority may not split the subject of a procurement in a way that avoids the Act — the anti-salami rule — and it may, if it chooses, run a simple procurement under the full Article 51 procedures anyway. The 2026 amendment at 98/2026 deleted the first paragraph of Article 27 and renumbered the rest, so a citation to "Article 27(2)" written before July 2026 now points at the wrong paragraph.
The appeal stops the tender
Article 183 puts protection of rights before the Commission for the Protection of Rights in Public Procurement Procedures. Article 185 sets the mechanics: the appeal is lodged with the Commission through the contracting authority, and it is filed through the ESJN, the electronic public procurement system. It may be brought against:
- the tender documentation;
- an amendment or supplement to the tender documentation;
- a decision excluding a bidder from the procedure;
- the decision selecting the most favourable bid;
- the decision annulling the procedure.
Then Article 187, which is the provision that makes the rest worth using:
An appeal interrupts the further actions of the contracting authority in the public procurement procedure until a decision on the appeal is made.
Suspensive effect by statute, with one narrow exception under Article 59(1)(3). A contract cannot simply be signed around you while the complaint is pending.
The clocks
Article 186 ties the deadline for attacking the tender documentation to how long bidders were given:
| Time allowed for bids | Deadline to challenge the documentation |
|---|---|
| at least 30 days | 20 days from publication or delivery |
| at least 15 days | 10 days from publication or delivery |
| under 15 days | until half the bid period has run |
Where the last day of the bid period is shorter than 24 hours, the period is treated as expiring at the end of that day. A decision excluding an applicant is challenged within 10 days of its service.
On the authority's side, Article 189 requires it to publish in the ESJN, within 3 days of the appeal, a notice that an appeal has been filed and that further steps are suspended. It may itself reject the appeal by decision within 8 days. The deadline in Article 189(3) for passing the appeal and the complete file onwards was shortened from 30 days to 25 by the 2026 amendment.
Article 193 sets the Commission's own deadlines: 8 days where the appellant withdraws; 8 days for the procedural rejections in Article 192(1)(2) to (6); and — reduced by the same 2026 amendment from 30 days — 25 days for the substantive decisions under Article 192(1)(7) and (8), from delivery of the appeal and the complete case file. That period may be extended by at most 10 days where an expert has to be engaged, opinions obtained from competent bodies, or the documentation is voluminous.
What the appeal costs, and when you get it back
Article 188(3) requires the appellant to attach proof of payment of a fee for initiating the appeal procedure of 1% of the estimated value of the public procurement, or to file that proof by the appeal deadline at the latest.
Article 188(4) caps it: the fee may not exceed €20,000.
Article 188(5) refunds it: where the appeal is decided in the appellant's favour, the Commission must return the fee within 15 days of the decision becoming final. An underpayment is returned to the appellant under Article 188(6), and fees not returned become revenue of the state budget.
So the economics are straightforward. On a €2 million tender the appeal costs €20,000 at the cap, recoverable in full if you succeed, and it freezes the award while it runs.
The requirement a foreign bidder must not miss
Article 188 lists what the appeal must contain — the appellant's details, the authority's details, the number and date of the documentation or decision challenged, the reasons with an explanation, the evidence, the relief sought and the signature of an authorised person.
And then the paragraph that applies only to you:
An appellant that has no seat on the territory of Montenegro is obliged to appoint a representative for the service of documents in Montenegro, giving all the details needed to communicate with that person — or to designate another method of service that will not delay it.
That is an appointment to make before the bid, not after the award. What a Montenegrin power of attorney actually reaches, and how narrowly a general one is read, is set out in revoking a Montenegrin power of attorney.
2026 narrowed who may complain
The amendment at 98/2026 rewrote part of Article 192(2). The Commission may now reject an appeal as unfounded "without considering the remaining allegations that would not affect a different outcome" — a docket-management power that cuts short arguments the Commission considers immaterial.
More importantly, it added a new ground for rejection:
the appellant does not challenge the first-ranked bidder and/or the other better-ranked bidders according to the authority's decision, and does not prove that its own bid is the most favourable.
Read that against a ranking. A bidder placed fourth who attacks only the winner, leaving second and third standing, cannot show that success would give it the contract — and on the new wording the appeal fails for that reason alone. The complaint has to be built against everyone ahead of you, or around a defect that voids the procedure as a whole.
What 132/2026 added
The September 2026 amendment inserted two paragraphs into Article 87 on technical specifications. Where the subject of the procurement is intended for use by natural persons, the specification must — save in specially justified cases — be drawn so as to take into account accessibility criteria for persons with disabilities or the principle of design for all users. Where mandatory accessibility requirements are laid down by law, another regulation or a binding standard, the specification must be set by reference to those requirements. The former paragraphs 4 to 7 became 6 to 9.
It also deleted the words "or Article 42 of this Act" from Article 108(1)(2).
For a supplier of anything the public will physically use, that first change is a specification risk to price rather than a formality.
Where this sits next to the neighbouring regimes
Public procurement is one of three ways public money reaches a private contractor in Montenegro, and they do not overlap. A concession is granted under its own act, and what can be a concession changed four times between 2023 and 2026 — see what can be a concession in Montenegro. An incentive is state aid, notifiable before it is granted and recoverable with interest if it was not — see state aid control.
On the delivery side, the contract risks that decide whether a won tender is profitable — fixed price, delay, variations — are covered in contractor risk, fixed price and delay, and the wider project sequence in construction project advisory.
What this page does not decide
Whether a particular body is a contracting authority, which procedure applies to your subject, and what qualification and exclusion criteria the documentation may impose are all case-specific and sit in parts of the Act this page does not cover. Nor does it address defence and security procurement, which has its own regulation, framework agreements, the detail of the ESJN, or the rules on simple procurements below the thresholds. The informative consolidation used here is expressly not an official text, and any article number going into a filed appeal should be checked against the Gazette.
Who we act for
We act for one side and we name it at the start — a bidder, or a contracting authority. On a challenge to an award those are opposed positions and we do not hold both. Fees are fixed and published, and a first consultation is charged and credited against the engagement if it proceeds.
Before the bid deadline
Send the tender documentation with its publication date, the bid deadline, and your own corporate documents in the form you intend to submit them. We come back with a written note: which Article 26 band the procurement falls in, the exact date your right to challenge the documentation expires under Article 186, who must be appointed for service under Article 188 and in what form, and — if an award has already been made — whether the ranking lets you satisfy the new Article 192(2) requirement at all.
