What is a tender validity period?

A tender validity period usually runs from the submission deadline through evaluation and award, so the bid the buyer selects remains open to acceptance. In bid work, it's the buyer's term, written into the tender pack and binding every supplier that submits a response.

How a tender validity period works

The validity period is the time after submission during which a bid stands as an open offer that the bidder cannot take back. The buyer's documents set its length and start date, so each tender a supplier answers can have a different one.

Take a small IT services firm answering its first tender. The instructions to tenderers, the document that tells bidders how to prepare and submit a response, say that bidders are bound by their bids for 90 days from the deadline for submitting them. That is the rule in the European Commission's instructions-to-tenderers template for EU external-action tenders. From the deadline until the 90th day, the buyer can accept the firm's bid at any time, and the firm can neither withdraw nor amend it. One South African municipal tender document sets out the same two rules for its own 90 days, counted from closing - the moment the buyer stops accepting bids.

The price is part of the bid, so it holds too. If a subcontractor raises its rates during those 90 days, or a currency the firm buys in moves against it, the price the firm submitted is still the price the buyer can accept. A long period stretches that exposure and a short one narrows it, which is why the number of days matters to the bidder as much as the deadline does.

A tender pack, the set of files the buyer issues, runs across several documents, and the period may sit in a different file from the deadline. To the firm, it looks like one line among many requirements. Yet it's a commitment on the tender timeline that runs past the day the response goes in.

Where it sits in the tender process

In the tender process, tender validity starts where the bidder's work on the response ends. It covers the buyer's side of the process: evaluation, when the buyer scores each bid against the criteria in its documents, then internal approval and the award decision, the buyer's choice of the winning bid. Buyers set the period to give that work enough time, so the bid they want is still open when they are ready to accept it.

Evaluation can still run long, and the buyer may then ask bidders to extend the period. What happens next depends on the rules the buyer's procurement follows and its documents. In the Commission's template for EU external-action tenders, the buyer may ask bidders in writing, in exceptional cases and before the period expires, to extend it by 40 days. A bidder that refuses keeps its tender guarantee - a financial guarantee the buyer can call on if a bidder does not keep to its bid - but its participation in the procedure ends. A bidder that agrees may not change its bid and must extend its guarantee.

Other templates attach the same condition to agreeing. An International Organization for Migration invitation-to-bid template requires a bidder that extends to do so without changing its original bid, and to extend any bid security, another name for the guarantee. Agreeing to an extension therefore carries the original bid, including the price, forward for longer. Refusing, under the Commission's template, removes the bid from the competition.

How it differs from related periods

Several other periods sit close to the validity period in a tender pack, and each measures something different.

Submission deadline

The submission deadline is the date and time by which bids must reach the buyer. It ends the bidder's time to prepare the response and usually marks the start of the validity period. Some documents call the same moment the closing date or closing time.

Contract period

The contract period is how long the awarded contract runs, from its start date to its end, including any extension the contract allows. It begins only after award and signature. The validity period covers the time before any contract exists, so a bid can be valid for a few months to win a contract that runs for several years.

Tender guarantee validity

Where the documents require a tender guarantee, the guarantee has its own validity date. The two dates are separate.

Standstill period

The standstill period is a pause between the award decision and contract signing. Its length depends on the rules the buyer's procurement follows. It starts only once a winner has been chosen, so it measures the buyer's wait before signing, never the bidder's commitment.

Quotation validity

Quotation validity is the period a seller prints on its own quote, often as a line at the foot of a standard price quote. The seller sets it to suit its own costs and suppliers. A tender validity period is the buyer's term instead: the tender documents set it, and every bid in the competition is held to the same one.