The short answer is: Law 14,133/2021, in isolation, did not create a universal obligation for every municipality to draw up an Annual Hiring Plan. The art. 12, VII, says that the bodies responsible for planning each federative entity may, in the form of regulations, prepare the PCA. The art itself. 18 reinforces this reading by requiring compatibility of the preparatory phase with the plan whenever it has been drawn up.
This does not mean that planning is optional. Law 14,133 treats planning as a principle, assigns senior management responsibility for contracting governance and requires that the preparatory phase be planned. The legal issue, therefore, is not choosing between planning or not planning. It is to identify whether, in that municipality, the PCA is one of the mandatory instruments for this planning or whether the Administration uses another arrangement while there is no local rule that imposes the plan.
The legal response begins with the source of the obligation
What does art. 12, VII, really says
The starting point is the wording of Law 14,133 itself. The art. 12, VII, establishes that, based on the documents formalizing demands, the bodies responsible for planning each federative entity may, in the form of regulations, prepare an annual hiring plan. The verb used by the legislator is may, and shall not.
The reading gains strength when art. 18 states that the preparatory phase must be compatible with the PCA whenever prepared. The same reasoning appears in § 1, II, of art. 18, when dealing with the preliminary technical study: the forecast for contracting in the PCA must be demonstrated whenever the plan has been drawn up. These expressions would be inconsistent with the idea that the federal law itself, without any complement, would oblige all municipalities to have a PCA under any circumstances.
Mandatory planning is not synonymous with automatically mandatory PCA
The distinction is essential. The art. 5th of Law 14,133 includes planning among the principles applicable to public procurement. The sole paragraph of art. 11 holds senior management accountable for governance and aligning hiring with strategic planning and budgetary laws. The art. 18 defines the preparatory phase as the planning phase.
Thus, a city hall that does not have a PCA is not exempt from demonstrating planning. She remains responsible for organizing your demands, justifying needs, estimating quantities, making expenses compatible with the budget, structuring studies and controlling risks. The absence of PCA may be legally different from the absence of planning, but the Administration must be able to demonstrate that the duty to plan was effectively fulfilled.
Decree 10,947/2022 does not automatically apply to all city halls
Where the federal decree makes the PCA mandatory
Decree 10,947/2022 regulates art. 12, VII, within the scope of direct, autonomous and foundational federal public administration. Within this scope, the rule is mandatory: art. 6th determines that bodies and entities will prepare their annual hiring plans, observing the exceptions provided for in the decree itself.
This is why many answers on the internet seem contradictory.. A page that describes the federal Executive regime can correctly state that the PCA is mandatory in that universe. The problem appears when this conclusion is transported, without analysis, to a city hall.
Access to the PGC does not transform the decree into a municipal rule
Art. 4th of Decree 10,947 allows the use of the Contract Planning and Management System, the PGC, to be transferred to bodies and entities in the States, the Federal District and the Municipalities. This possibility of using the tool does not, in itself, equate to the automatic extension of the entire federal legal regime to the municipality.
In other words, the city hall can use a federal planning solution without this eliminating the need to verify the local regulatory base. What makes deadlines, stages, approvals, review hypotheses and other procedures mandatory is the standard applicable to the entity, and not just the fact that the tool is available.
Law 14,133 allows the application of Union regulations
Art. 187 of Law 14,133 authorizes States, the Federal District and Municipalities to apply the regulations issued by the Union to execute the law. This paves the way for a municipality to adopt federal rules, including as a reference for the PCA. But the analysis must identify how this application was made and what its scope is.
A municipal decree can fully incorporate Decree 10,947, adopt only part of its discipline or create its own procedure. There may also be local law, resolution, normative instruction or other competent act establishing specific duties. Therefore, citing Decree 10,947 without examining the municipal act is insufficient to conclude that the city hall is legally subject to all the commands of the federal regulation.
Local regulation is the turning point
In practice, the decisive question is usually less abstract: did the municipality regulate the PCA and, if so, did it use optional or mandatory language? A local act that determines that the bodies must prepare the PCA, establishes a calendar, assigns responsibilities and conditions hiring to the forecast in the plan creates a concrete administrative obligation within the scope of its competence.
Reading the regulations needs to go beyond the title. It is important to check who is subject to the act, from which exercise it takes effect, which contracts are included in the plan, who approves it, in which situations the document can be changed and what consequences there are for unforeseen demands. It is also necessary to check whether the standard adopted Decree 10,947 in full, as a subsidiary or just as a model.
This exam avoids two opposite errors. The first is to state that every municipality is bound by Decree 10,947, ignoring the federal scope of the decree. The second is to conclude that the PCA is always optional just because art. 12 uses the verb may, disregarding a local norm that has already converted the legal power into an administrative duty.
What the audit courts add to the analysis
TCESP: strict optionality, strong recommendation and need for motivation
Institutional materials from the Court of Auditors of the State of São Paulo help to separate the literal reading of the law from the expectation of good governance. In the Court's manual, the PCA is described as not mandatory from a strictly legal point of view, although recommended as it is a relevant planning tool. In an institutional publication of reflections on the new law, TCESP also notes that the absence of the plan must be justified.
In addition, SDG Communiqués No. 12/2023 and No. 34/2023 reinforce the recommendation for the State and municipalities to formulate the PCA. Communiqué 34/2023 recommends the preparation of the plan, its dissemination and the publication of a regulatory standard that defines deadlines, responsible parties, forms of review and consequences for unjustified non-compliance.
The practical consequence is important: even where there is no local standard making PCA mandatory, the decision not to adopt it should not be treated as an unfounded choice. In a control environment, Management needs to demonstrate why the adopted model meets the planning principle and how it organizes its hiring in a rational, predictable and budget-compatible manner.
TCE-PI: 2026 decisions make the control risk more concrete
In March 2026, the Court of Auditors of the State of Piauí issued recommendations to municipalities to prepare the PCA. In Ruling No. 65-A/2026, relating to Riacho Frio, the Court recommended that the city hall draw up the plan. In a decision involving Caracol, the Court also recommended the preparation of the PCA to ensure fundamental principles of public procurement and warned that failure to prepare it should be avoided given the risk of violating the principles of art. 5th of Law 14,133.
These demonstrations should not be confused with an amendment to the text of the federal law. They show, however, that external control can treat the absence of the PCA as a sign of planning deficiency, especially when the municipality also presents flaws in the organization of demands, in quantities, in studies or in governance. For management
municipal, this increases the value of a formal, motivated and documented decision on the adopted planning instrument.
Recommendation of the court of auditors and regulatory obligation are not the same thing
A recommendation from the audit court has institutional relevance and can guide inspections, but its nature is different from a law or local regulation that directly imposes the duty. It is also different from a specific determination issued in a control process for a specific jurisdiction. When answering whether PCA is mandatory, it is therefore necessary to indicate where the obligation comes from in each case, without placing all these sources on the same level.
When the PCA exists, it produces legal consequences
The plan must be observed
Paragraph 1 of art. 12 of Law 14,133 establishes that the PCA, once prepared, will be observed by the federative entity when carrying out bids and executing contracts. From then on, the plan should not be treated as a merely informative file produced to comply with the calendar.
In the preparatory phase, art. 18 requires compatibility with the PCA whenever it was developed. The preliminary technical study must also demonstrate the forecast for contracting in the plan, if any. Therefore, the Administration needs to maintain coherence between what it planned and what actually leads to hiring.
A contract outside the PCA requires formal treatment
Under the federal regime of Decree 10,947, demands that are not included in the PCA give rise to a review of the plan when justified, and changes during the year of execution depend on justification approved by the competent authority. This rule applies directly to the federal scope defined by the decree.
In the municipality, the solution must follow the applicable local regulation. Even so, after the PCA has been prepared, Law 14,133 itself requires that it be observed. Deviations, late inclusions or relevant changes need to be treated with motivation and with the review procedure provided for by municipal regulations, preventing the plan from losing function and becoming an ineffective formality.
Disclosure, official website and PNCP
Law 14,133 determines that the prepared PCA be published and kept available to the public on the official website. The art. 174, when regulating the National Public Contracting Portal, includes annual contracting plans among the information that the PNCP must contain. In the federal Executive, Decree 10,947 provides for the automatic availability of the plan approved by the PNCP and the indication of the access address on the body or entity's website.
For municipalities, it is necessary to check integration with the PNCP and local operational rules. There is also a specific transition for municipalities with up to 20 thousand inhabitants: art. 176 granted a period of six years, counting from the publication of Law 14,133 on April 1, 2021, to comply with the rules regarding disclosure on the official website. Until they adopt the PNCP, these municipalities must observe the advertising alternatives provided for in the art itself. 176. This transition affects the form of disclosure, it does not automatically transform the PCA into mandatory or optional.
A decision-making map to find out if the city hall is obligated
Is there a local standard determining the preparation of the PCA?
If the answer is yes, the starting point is to comply with local regulations. It is necessary to verify the subjective scope, the period of validity, deadlines, exceptions and the review procedure. In this scenario, the obligation does not only derive from the verb used in Law 14,133, but from the regulation that implemented the discipline for the municipality.
Did the municipality adopt Decree 10,947/2022 or another federal regulation?
If there is adoption, the act that made this incorporation must be checked. The authorization of art. 187 allows the application of Union regulations, but the real scope depends on the way the municipality structured this choice. The generic reference to the federal decree is not enough to assume that all its deadlines and procedures have been incorporated.
Is there no local standard or identifiable adoption?
In this scenario, Law 14,133, read strictly, does not establish a universal duty to prepare PCA: art. 12, VII, uses may and art. 18 works with the expression whenever elaborated. This does not eliminate the duty to plan or the risk of control. The Administration must evaluate the guidance of the competent audit court, document the option adopted and demonstrate how it meets the governance, planning and budgetary compatibility requirements.
Has the municipality already prepared a PCA?
If the plan already exists, the discussion is no longer just about the initial ability to draw it up. The consequences of § 1 of art come into play. 12: disclosure and observance of the plan in bidding processes and contractual execution. The preparatory phase must be compatible with the PCA, and any changes must follow the applicable review discipline.
What should a city hall check before answering "is it mandatory?"
A legally sound response depends on four layers: the text of Law 14,133, the scope of Decree 10,947, the municipality's own regulations and the guidelines or decisions of the competent audit court. The conclusion changes when one of these layers changes.
For this reason, the diagnosis should not start by searching for a ready-made phrase on the internet. It must start with the local normative act. Then, it is necessary to check whether a federal regulation has been adopted, whether the PCA has already been instituted and what compliance, review and publicity obligations have come into existence. Only then should external control guidelines be positioned as an element of risk and governance, without confusing them with the primary normative source of obligation.
Conclusion: Law 14,133 does not provide the same answer for every municipality
For municipalities, Law 14,133 does not make the PCA universally mandatory just by art. 12, VII. Decree 10,947/2022 makes the plan mandatory at the federal level that it delimits, but does not automatically reach each city hall. The municipal obligation may arise from a law, decree or other competent local regulation, or from the application of
Union regulations pursuant to art. 187.
At the same time, the absence of PCA does not authorize the absence of planning. The principle of planning, contracting governance and the preparatory phase remain mandatory, and audit courts have reinforced the expectation that the plan will be adopted or, when not, that the decision is well motivated and that there are equivalent mechanisms for organizing demands.
When the PCA is prepared, Law 14,133 itself requires that it be disclosed and observed. Therefore, the correct question for a city hall is not just "is the PCA mandatory?", but "which local rule governs our PCA, what was adopted from the federal regime and what planning, publicity and coherence duties already bind this entity?". As this is a legal topic subject to local regulation and control understandings, the application to a specific municipality must be confirmed by legal advice and the current acts of the entity itself.
