National standard tender for Italy's beach concessions: the Ministry's draft, terms up to 20 years, and what changes for Blue Flag beaches

On September 30, 2026, Italy's Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport (MIT) presented the Unified Conference — the forum where the national government, regions, provinces and municipalities coordinate — with a draft national standard tender (bando-tipo) for maritime state concessions used for tourism and recreation. The document is meant to guide regions and municipalities as they award beach concessions through uniform procedures nationwide. Reported by Italian outlets including ANSA, Avvenire and RiminiToday, the text is still a draft open to changes before final adoption, but it already lays out the reform's key pillars: concession terms of 5 to 20 years, award criteria weighted toward project quality rather than price, compensation for outgoing operators, and a hard deadline for launching the tenders. For beach operators and Blue Flag municipalities that will have to apply these rules on their own shores, this is the first concrete technical text worth studying.

A national standard tender, not yet final

The document released by the Ministry is not a regulation already in force — it is a draft standard tender presented to the Unified Conference, the body where the state negotiates with regional and local governments. As ANSA itself noted, the text remains "open to adjustments": before it becomes operative, it has to go through institutional discussion with regions and municipalities, which can propose changes. The stated goal is to guarantee uniform conditions for awarding maritime state concessions, ending the patchwork of rules that for years has produced different tender formats from one municipality to the next. For beach operators and municipal technical offices, this means tracking how the text evolves — the final version could differ, even if not dramatically, from the one that circulated at the end of September.

Concession length: 5 to 20 years, with a June 30, 2027 deadline

The most-discussed point in the draft concerns how long the new concessions will run: a range of 5 to 20 years, to be set case by case according to criteria the standard tender is still expected to spell out (scale of required investment, type of facility, characteristics of the coastal stretch). On timing, the draft requires tenders to be published at least six months before current licenses expire, and in any case the new tender processes must be launched by June 30, 2027. A continuity clause ensures existing concessions stay valid until the new operator actually takes over, avoiding any management gap during the beach season. For municipalities, this means planning concession tenders well ahead of time — including on stretches of coast certified with the Blue Flag.

How operators will win: project quality over price

The Ministry has chosen the "most economically advantageous bid" as its award criterion, based on the best quality-to-price ratio — so the winner isn't whoever bids the most money, but whoever submits the strongest technical project. According to press coverage of the draft, the price component can weigh no more than 10% of the maximum score, with the rest of the evaluation focused on factors such as the architectural and functional quality of the facility, environmental sustainability and circular-economy practices, and universal accessibility for people with disabilities. The draft also caps how concentrated licenses can get: an operator already running the maximum number of lots allowed for that type of facility cannot bid for more, a measure meant to curb excessive consolidation of beach concessions in the hands of a few operators.

Compensation for outgoing operators

An operator who loses a concession at the end of a tender doesn't walk away empty-handed. The draft provides for compensation calculated on the value of investments made but not yet amortized, net of any public aid already received, plus a fair-return component on investments made during the last five years of management. The amount must be set through a sworn appraisal, obtained by the granting authority before the tender even opens, so bidders know in advance the financial cost tied to taking over the concession. It's a safeguard for operators who invested in their facility during the outgoing concession and then have to hand management over to a new awardee.

What it means for municipalities and Blue Flag beaches

For coastal municipalities — including the many that compete every year for the Blue Flag award — the national standard tender shifts part of the workload onto local planning. Regions and municipalities keep authority over redrawing lots and coordinating through their own urban-planning tools for managing state-owned coastal land (the piani di utilizzazione delle aree demaniali, or shoreline use plans), but they'll now have to do so within a uniform rulebook set by the Ministry, rather than drafting independent tenders as they have until now. Mandatory biennial checks on whether promised investments are actually delivered also introduce ongoing oversight of facility quality over time — an element that dovetails with the environmental and accessibility criteria the Blue Flag program already requires for its award. It remains to be seen how the final text will handle equipped free beaches (spiagge libere attrezzate) in detail, a point the draft circulated at the end of September does not develop specifically and that could be expanded as talks with regions and municipalities continue.