Questions & Answers
Switzerland is not an EU member state. Swiss federal buyers follow the Federal Act on Public Procurement, and cantonal and communal buyers follow the Intercantonal Agreement on Public Procurement. Swiss public tenders are published on simap.ch.
The State of Construction Procurement in Zurich
Updated
Procurement rules for Zurich
Switzerland is not an EU member state. Swiss federal buyers follow the Federal Act on Public Procurement, and cantonal and communal buyers follow the Intercantonal Agreement on Public Procurement. Swiss public tenders are published on simap.ch.
Where the notices come from
For Switzerland, the Lucius catalog indexes open notices from: TED, UNGM (UN agencies). The Lucius catalog has no separate feed for Zurich; its Zurich notices come from the national feeds.
Construction notices in the catalog
On 24 September 2026, across Germany, Austria and Switzerland combined, not only Switzerland, the catalog held 1,309 open notices whose text mentions construction, drawn from TED. Of the 1,308 with a deadline in the next 12 months, 1,154 (88%) were due to close within 30 days, and the median time left was 16 days. Across all sectors, 6,686 notices were open in the same scope.
Examples of open construction notices from buyers in Switzerland (not specific to Zurich) on 24 September 2026:
- AMB/2026/105, Nuovo edificio amministrativo, Giubiasco, Opera da impresario costruttore, from Azienda Multiservizi Bellinzona (AMB), closing in September 2026. In English: Azienda Multiservizi Bellinzona (AMB) is procuring construction contractor works for a new administrative building in Giubiasco.
- Planungsleistungen Hausanschlüsse und Netzerweiterungen Wärmeverbund Riehen, from IWB Industrielle Werke Basel, closing in September 2026. In English: IWB Industrielle Werke Basel is seeking a planning partner starting from 2027 for pipeline and civil engineering works on behalf of Wärmeverbund Riehen (WVR).
- EPFL ASB, AO 27, CVC Hydraulique et ventilation bureaux, from EPFL VPF ACHATS, closing in September 2026. In English: EPFL VPF ACHATS is procuring heating and ventilation installations for the administrative areas of the new Advanced Science Building.
- VS Kirchenfeld, Neubau und Gesamtsanierung, BKP 273.0 Innentüren aus Holz, from Fachstelle Beschaffungswesen Stadt Bern, closing in September 2026. In English: The City of Bern Procurement Office is seeking interior wooden doors for the construction and total renovation of the VS Kirchenfeld project.
- Template DE, FR Construction, from Swissgrid AG, Engineering & Construction, closing in September 2026. In English: Swissgrid AG is procuring construction services for a new substation building and its immediate surroundings in Wittenwil to modernize aging secondary equipment and separate from…
Across all open notices in this set, 118 different buyers were publishing; the most active were Fachstelle Beschaffungswesen Stadt Bern (14 notices); Office fédéral des routes OFROU, Division Infrastructure routière Ouest, filiale Estavayer-le-Lac (14 notices); Ufficio federale delle strade USTRA, divisione infrastruttura stradale Est (11 notices); Commune de Bois-d'Amont (10 notices); and Office fédéral des routes (OFROU), Division Infrastructure routière Ouest, Filiale Thoune (9 notices).
What bid and tender writers prepare
Tender writers work through the buyer's questions, instructions, word limits and required attachments. They plan each answer against the evaluation criteria stated in the pack. They write method statements and quality answers, often adapting material from earlier bids. They check that every requirement in the pack has an answer before submission.
How Lucius AI helps
Lucius AI reads a public-sector tender pack and extracts every requirement into a register, with a citation to the page each requirement comes from. From that register it builds a compliance matrix. The contract terms are scanned for commercial risk, such as liquidated damages, liability caps and indemnities, and the tender gets a bid/no-bid verdict. Responses are drafted from the company's own past bids, kept in its Bid Library, and the work exports to Word, Excel and PDF. The catalog behind it is a live index of 230,000+ public tenders from 15 official sources in 170+ countries.
Bidders into Zurich construction contracts compete under simap.ch and the Federal Public Procurement Act (BöB). Sector-specific compliance bars include construction health-and-safety and design-management duties, standard-form contract selection, retention and performance bonds, and social-value and net-zero commitments. When a tender asks for any of them, Lucius lists that requirement with its page and a quote from the source.
Lucius vs generic LLMs for tender writing in Construction / Zurich
Reading a tender pack by hand means finding each requirement and contract term across separate documents. Lucius AI puts every requirement in a register with a citation to its page, builds a compliance matrix and scans the contract terms for commercial risk.
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