Monteput is seeking a designer for the Montenegrin section towards Bosnia. The tender covers a preliminary design for about 45 kilometres – not construction, not the final alignment and not an opening.
The key point first: the tender is for plans, not asphalt
Montenegro's state motorway company Monteput has issued a tender for an idejni projekt, or preliminary design, for the Gradac–Grahovo section. This is an in-depth planning stage in which the alignment, structures and technical solutions are examined and prepared for later approvals. It is not an order for excavators, tunnel-boring machines or carriageway construction.
The estimated contract value is four million euros excluding VAT, or €4.84 million including VAT. Bids are due by 2 October 2026. Only then can a designer be selected and a contract concluded. No start of construction can be inferred from the tender.
What is to be produced in 15 months
The work is scheduled to take 15 months from the start of the contract. After seven months, a first coherent stage should be available: a surveyed base, geological investigations and a defined alignment option. Further development will be accompanied and checked by a review commission.
This period does not begin when the tender is published, but only after the subsequent contract. Even a completed preliminary design is not a construction permit. Environmental procedures, final design, land issues, financing and a construction tender remain separate steps.
Gradac–Grahovo · status August 2026
Four million euros buys planning – not yet a road
The approximately 45 kilometres in this tender end at Grahovo; the section to the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina is not included.
45 kilometres through demanding karst terrain
The section under study is expected to be about 45 kilometres long and connect the planned Gradac interchange with Grahovo. The preliminary technical basis specifies four traffic lanes, two hard shoulders and a design speed of 100 to 120 kilometres per hour. Interchanges at Gradac, Čevo, Krivošije and Grahovo are envisaged.
The brief also anticipates about 15 bridges, potentially more than five kilometres in total, and three tunnel zones with a combined length of roughly two kilometres. These figures show the scale of the terrain. They are not yet a list of structures for an approved route and may change through surveying, geology, environmental assessment and comparison of alternatives.
In this tender, the route towards Bosnia ends at Grahovo
Montenegro's medium-term roads programme describes the larger Adriatic–Ionian corridor from the Gradac interchange via Čevo and Grahovo to the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. The current tender covers Gradac–Grahovo. The following Grahovo–Nudo section, or the section to the state border, is not part of this contract.
A headline claiming that a ‘motorway to Bosnia is being built’ would therefore be wrong twice over: this procedure does not involve construction at all, and the design initially stops short of the border. The tender fills a gap in Montenegro's preliminary design work – it does not yet close a transport gap on the map.
There is no continuous motorway under construction on the Bosnian side either
Preparations are under way for individual parts of the Adriatic–Ionian corridor in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2026, JP Autoceste Federacije BiH published land-acquisition steps for the approximately 23.25-kilometre Počitelj–Stolac section and reported working meetings with the affected municipalities.
That is relevant, but geographically and procedurally it is not a direct connection to a completed route near Grahovo. Planning, approval and financing gaps remain between national subprojects. These two developments do not give travellers from the Croatian coast through Montenegro to Bosnia a new motorway connection today.
Why the TEN-T label requires caution here
Montenegro places its motorway and expressway plans within a much larger national network. The European Commission report describes the programme as very ambitious and puts the total planned road investment at about nine billion euros. That amount does not belong to the Gradac–Grahovo section and is not a committed budget for it.
The EU also notes that parts of Montenegro's inland and coastal plans go beyond the jointly agreed corridors of the trans-European transport network and the Transport Community. Gradac–Grahovo should therefore not be described as an EU-financed TEN-T construction project without a specific funding decision.
What is still needed before construction can begin
The first open questions are the selection of the designer and the final alignment option. Depending on the procedure, environmental and spatial-planning decisions, detailed design, permits, land acquisition and reliable cost estimates follow. Construction would require a settled financing and procurement model and a separate works tender.
There is therefore no published reliable construction start, opening year or robust total price. Even the number of bridges and tunnels is still a planning assumption. The current four million euros are buying knowledge about a possible road – not a share of 45 completed kilometres.
For travellers, nothing changes for now
Anyone travelling between Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro today will continue to use the existing roads and border crossings. This tender creates no new access road, diversion or shorter journey time. Land works along a supposed future line would not be a useful reference point either, because the exact alignment has yet to be developed.
The next reliable milestone would be the award of the preliminary design and, later, an officially confirmed preferred option. Approval and financing decisions would still be decisive after that. Until then, Gradac–Grahovo is a seriously prepared infrastructure project – but not a construction site.
Evidence
Sources & date
Sources support the facts. Planning notes and recommendations are Golden Beach editorial assessments.
- Medium-term programme for the construction of state roads 2024–2027Government of Montenegro / Ministry of Transport · medium-term programme, checked 23 August 2026official overall corridor Gradac–Čevo–Grahovo–Bosnia and Herzegovina border and its place in Montenegro's planned road programme
- Monteput completes the preliminary-design process for all planned motorwaysInvestitor · 20 August 2026, checked 23 August 2026subject of the tender, contract value, bid deadline, design period, preliminary length, interchanges, bridges and tunnels, and explicit distinction from a construction contract
- Montenegro Report 2025European Commission · 4 November 2025, checked 23 August 2026assessment of Montenegro's ambitious road programme, total value of about nine billion euros and distinction from agreed TEN-T projects
- Public notice for properties – Adriatic–Ionian motorway, Počitelj–StolacJP Autoceste Federacije BiH · 20 February 2026, checked 23 August 2026preparations for land acquisition for a 23.25-kilometre Bosnian subsection; not evidence of a continuous connection to Grahovo
- Grahovo polje, Bijela gora and OrjenWikimedia Commons · photographed 16 June 2013, licence checked 23 August 2026lead image by Orjen under CC BY-SA 3.0; geographical illustration, not an alignment map
