Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. A communication device, which may be otherwise known as user equipment (UE) may support repetition of physical downlink control channels (PDCCH) and handling a combined PDCCH candidate associated with multiple search space sets. For example, a UE may combine a first PDCCH candidate corresponding to a first search space set and a second PDCCH candidate corresponding to a second search space set to form a combined PDCCH candidate. The UE may decode the combined PDCCH candidate based on one or more factors, for example, such as a blind decoding PDCCH candidate threshold. As a result, the UE may decode the combined PDCCH candidate in addition to decoding of individual PDCCH candidates, thereby providing increased flexibility for downlink control information (DCI) and improving the reliability of PDCCH.