The official written notice from the owner telling the contractor to start construction.
A Notice to Proceed is a formal written authorization from the project owner to the contractor instructing them to begin work on the contract. The NTP typically establishes the official project start date from which contract milestones and the substantial completion deadline are calculated. On public projects, a contractor cannot begin work and is not entitled to compensation until the NTP is issued, even if the contract has already been executed.
The NTP sets the clock that governs the entire schedule baseline, so estimators tie contract time, liquidated-damages exposure, and substantial-completion deadlines to its issuance date rather than the contract signing date. A delayed NTP can compress the planned schedule or push work into adverse weather, and contractors should clarify in the bid whether time runs from NTP or from a fixed calendar date. On public work, performing before the NTP is issued is usually uncompensated and may even be a contract violation.
A site contractor mobilizes crews the Monday after receiving the owner's Notice to Proceed, because the 180-day contract clock and the liquidated-damages deadline both start counting from that NTP date, not from the day the contract was signed three weeks earlier.
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