Bid validity in a tender: how long your price is held

The Manual for Procurement of Goods (second edition, 2024), para 5.2.8, says a bid remains valid for the period in the tender document, 90 days if not specified, and a bid valid for a shorter period is rejected as non-responsive. The Manual for Procurement of Works (second edition, 2025), para 4.12, says the same. If the last day of validity falls on a holiday or closed day for the buyer, validity extends to the next working day. For single tender and proprietary article purchases, the Manual allows a shorter validity to be accepted (para 7.3.1).

Buyers are told not to set it unreasonably long, because keeping a bid open for a long time risks higher prices. GFR 2017 Rule 174(iii) says contracts should be placed within the original validity and that extending it is to be discouraged and used only in exceptional circumstances. The number is tender specific: a GeM bid document dated 14 August 2026 shows a field called Bid Offer Validity (From End Date) with a value of 180 days.

Until validity ends, your price and terms are held. Withdrawing, amending or otherwise derogating from a bid between the bid deadline and the end of validity means the bid security is forfeited (Manual para 5.2.5). Where the buyer used a bid securing declaration instead of EMD, the same act counts as a violation of the Code of Integrity and the bidder is suspended for the period stated in the declaration (para 6.1.1).

Validity also sets the life of the EMD. GFR 2017 Rule 170 says bid security is normally to remain valid for 45 days beyond the final bid validity period, and unsuccessful bidders' bid security is returned after validity expires, at the latest by the 30th day after award.

If the buyer cannot place the contract within the original validity for exceptional and unforeseen reasons, it may ask all responsive bidders, preferably before validity expires, to extend validity and to extend the bid security for the extra period (Manual para 7.6.2). A bidder may refuse, and refusing does not forfeit its bid security. A bidder who agrees must do so without changing any terms or conditions of its original bid. If a bidder refuses to extend, or withdraws, before the financial evaluation is complete, its bid is still evaluated, and if it turns out to be L1 the tender must be re-tendered. That bidder's price is not to be used as a precedent for estimates or price reasonableness.

The mistake is to treat a quiet buyer as a lapsed offer, or to count validity from award rather than from the bid deadline. The offer stays open until the stated date, and walking away inside it costs the bid security. The opposite error is agreeing to an extension while trying to change the terms of the bid, which the Manual does not permit.