Taiwan’s Government Procurement Act: 2025 Draft Amendments at a Glance

In November 2025, the Taiwanese government proposed draft amendments to the Government Procurement Act to enhance efficiency, streamline procedures, strengthen supplier protections, and refine penalty mechanisms. Comprising 52 revised articles, the draft represents the most significant overhaul in the law's history and aims to address long-standing inefficiencies while aligning the framework with current practical needs.

In early 2026, the Public Construction Commission ("PCC") announced that the draft amendment would be postponed due to controversy over the required number of bidders in open tender procedures, with a revised version expected by the end of 2026. Nevertheless, the 2025 draft indicates the future direction of Taiwan's procurement regime, and suppliers should take note of these developments.

Below, we highlight four key areas of focus that may affect suppliers.

1. Enhancing Procurement Efficiency

The draft seeks to improve procurement efficiency by attracting high-quality suppliers, improving the quality of public construction, and digitizing procurement procedures. It expands the use of selective and limited tendering procedures, including for national security purposes, and grants agencies greater discretion in applying such procedures (Draft Art. 20, Para. 1, Subparas. 6 & 7; Art. 22, Para. 1, Subpara. 9). It also broadens the exceptions to the requirement of setting a government estimate, including where contract modifications are carried out in accordance with the original contract terms to meet practical operational needs (Draft Art. 47, Para. 1, Subpara. 3). In addition, to modernize the procurement process in response to technological developments, the draft expressly permits the electronic submission of tender documents (Draft Art. 33).

2. Simplifying the Most Advantageous Tender Mechanism

The current Most Advantageous Tender ("MAT") procedure allows the government to select suppliers based on overall value rather than relying solely on the lowest bid. However, in practice, the MAT procedure has proven complex. The current Act adopts different approaches to MAT procedures depending on the circumstances, each with distinct procedural requirements and legal terminology. This complexity often leads to improper execution of the tendering process and gives rise to disputes between procuring agencies and suppliers. To address these issues, the draft streamlines the regime by removing prior approval requirement for adopting MAT (Current Art. 56, Para. 3). Meanwhile, it authorizes and mandates the PCC to promulgate detailed regulations to establish a more comprehensive and standardized MAT framework (Draft Art. 56, Para. 3). In addition, it requires the use of the MAT procedure, without setting a government estimate, for procurements involving professional services, technical services, real property, and similar categories so as to enhance consistency (Draft Art. 52-1).

3. Strengthening Supplier Protections

To attract more suppliers, the draft seeks to enhance supplier protections by addressing practical challenges faced under the current procurement regime. In particular, the existing system is characterized by inconsistent rules and overly prolonged statutes of limitations governing suppliers' claims, making it difficult for suppliers to effectively protect their rights. The draft therefore revises various limitation periods to shorten the timeframes for actions such as the recovery of bid bonds and challenges to suspension notifications (Draft Arts. 31, Para. 5; 50, Para. 4; 59, Para. 3; 101, Para. 7).

In addition, the draft establishes, as a general principle, the mandatory use of the PCC's model contracts so as to reduce the risk of unfair or unreasonable terms imposed by procuring agencies (Draft Art. 63). It also strengthens protections for subcontractors by granting their claims priority over other creditors in enforcement proceedings initiated by the main contractor, helping to ensure payment security and maintain subcontractors' willingness to perform (Draft Art. 67, Paras. 3 & 4).

4. Refining Penalty Mechanisms

The draft introduces a more calibrated suspension regime, enhanced disclosure penalties, and clearer standards for bribery violations. Current suspension regime has been criticized as overly harsh in practice. To address this, the draft includes a "supplier exemption" mechanism, under which a supplier will not be suspended solely due to an individual employee's misconduct if reasonable supervisory and compliance measures are in place (Draft Art. 101, Paras. 1 & 6). It also expands the recipients of public disclosure penalties notifications to suppliers actually involved in prohibited conduct and clarifies how overlapping disclosure periods should be calculated and enforced (Draft Arts. 101, Para. 1; 103-1). In addition, the current Act's ambiguous definition of bribery benefits, which relies on terms such as "commission" and "kickback," has led to controversies in judicial practice. To address this issue, the draft is aligned with the Anti-Corruption Act to improve clarity and consistency in enforcement (Draft Art. 59, Paras. 1 & 2).