Technology suppliers
Software, cloud and AI providers tendering in Portugal, who will face new contractual requirements on documentation, explainability and data use.
Article 1-C of the Portuguese Public Contracts Code
Digitised is not the same as digital.
Portugal has required electronic tendering for over a decade. The 2026 reform goes further: it imposes a duty to use digital systems across the contract lifecycle and subjects that use to five principles whose observance must be demonstrable.
1-C
Governing provision
5
Statutory principles
30 days
Maximum trial period
1 Oct 2026
Watershed date
Context
What article 1-C requires
A short provision with long consequences: it applies across the whole lifecycle, and each of its five principles has to be capable of being demonstrated.
Article 1-C, added by Decree-Law 177/2026, has two paragraphs. The first establishes a duty for contracting authorities to use digital systems, including artificial intelligence, in planning, preparation and conduct of the award procedure and in contract performance, with a view to maximum efficiency.
The second subjects that use to five principles: transparency and explainability, so as to guarantee the right to know that digital systems are used and how they work; security, through solutions that minimise the risk of error and of discriminatory effects; protection of personal data, trade and industrial secrets and other confidential information; human oversight and input, which does not dispense with the intervention of the competent officeholders in verifying the results produced; and interoperability with the State's aggregating platforms.
[The precise scope of the duty to use digital systems, in particular whether it requires the adoption of artificial intelligence systems as such, awaits doctrinal and judicial interpretation that does not yet exist.]
Audience
Who we work with
Providers offering trials
Providers who offer free evaluation periods need to know that receiving data for model training in return is now an expressly prohibited consideration.
Groups standardising practice
International groups aligning electronic signature, archiving and platform governance across jurisdictions, including Portugal.
Long-duration contract holders
Concessionaires and holders of long-duration contracts who must keep an audit trail legible and verifiable well beyond the life of the system that created it.
Services
How we work
Our services are delivered in Portuguese and in English. The full catalogue, with technical sheets, timelines and indicative fees, is published on the Portuguese-language domain.
Digital maturity diagnosis
Where the lifecycle reverts to paper, and why, established by following a real procedure from start to archive.
Platform governance
Users, profiles, certificates and continuity on the electronic platforms through which tenders are submitted.
Electronic signature and evidence
Signature type by contract type, verification on receipt and preservation of validation data for later verification.
Reversibility and exit
Exit planning, data portability and exit pricing agreed while the relationship is good and the contract is up for renewal.
Selling technology to the Portuguese public sector?
The requirements that will appear in tender documents — technical documentation, explainability mechanisms, event logs, data-use restrictions — are worth preparing before the first authority asks for them.