Notice

A notice is a formal publication announcing a procurement event -- such as a planned purchase, an invitation to compete, a contract award, a modification, or a cancellation -- published through official channels to ensure transparency and equal access for all economic operators. In EU public procurement, notices are the primary mechanism through which contracting authorities communicate with the market. They are published in Tenders Electronic Daily (TED), the Official Journal supplement of the European Union, and increasingly through standardised eForms that enable machine-readable data exchange across all Member States.

How It Works

Notices serve as the informational backbone of every procurement procedure. They mark the key milestones of the procurement lifecycle: planning, competition, award, modification, and completion. Each notice type corresponds to a specific stage and carries distinct legal implications.

Notice types. EU procurement law defines several categories of notices, each serving a different purpose:

Prior Information Notice (PIN): Published in advance of a procurement to inform the market of planned purchases. A PIN may serve purely as an advance warning (allowing reduced time limits later) or, in certain procedures, as the call for competition itself.
Contract Notice (CN): The standard call for competition, inviting economic operators to submit tenders or requests to participate. The contract notice is the most important notice for suppliers because it marks the formal start of the competition.
Contract Award Notice (CAN): Published after a contract is concluded, announcing the outcome including the winning supplier, contract value, and number of tenders received. Article 50 of Directive 2014/24/EU requires publication within 30 days of contract conclusion.
Change Notice / Modification Notice: Communicates substantive changes to a published notice or to an existing contract. Pre-award changes modify tender conditions; post-award modifications fall under Article 72.
Corrigendum: Corrects errors in a previously published notice without altering the substance of the procurement.
Voluntary Ex-Ante Transparency Notice (VEAT): Published when a contracting authority intends to award without competition, providing a voluntary standstill period.
Design Contest Notice/Result: Announces design contests and their outcomes.
Concession Notice/Award: Covers the award of concession contracts under Directive 2014/23/EU.

The eForms standard. Since October 2023, EU procurement notices must be submitted using eForms, the standardised electronic forms defined by Implementing Regulation 2019/1780. eForms replace the previous standard forms and introduce a structured, machine-readable data model with hundreds of business terms (BT fields) covering every aspect of the procurement. Key fields include BT-05 (Notice Dispatch Date), BT-758 (Changed Notice Identifier for change notices), and BT-131 (Deadline for Receipt of Tenders).

Publication workflow. The lifecycle of a notice follows a defined path. The contracting authority prepares the notice using its e-procurement platform, which generates the eForms XML. The notice is dispatched to TED, where it undergoes validation checks. TED publishes the notice within 48 hours of dispatch (or within five days if dispatch occurs on a non-working day). The notice becomes available in all official EU languages (at minimum the title, key dates, and contact information are translated). Simultaneously, the notice typically appears on the relevant national procurement platform.

Relationship to procedures. A notice does not exist in isolation -- it belongs to a procedure (a specific procurement exercise). A single procedure typically generates multiple notices over its lifetime: a PIN for advance planning, a contract notice to launch competition, possibly one or more change notices or corrigenda, and a contract award notice to announce the result. Complex procedures such as dynamic purchasing systems or framework agreements may generate dozens of notices over several years.

National notices. For below-threshold contracts that do not require TED publication, Member States operate national notice platforms. In Germany, notices appear on platforms such as bund.de, the Vergabeportale of individual Laender, and commercial platforms. In France, the Bulletin officiel des annonces des marches publics (BOAMP) and the profils d'acheteur (buyer profiles) serve this function. National notice formats vary but increasingly align with eForms-compatible standards.

Legal Framework

Articles 48 through 51 of Directive 2014/24/EU establish the notice requirements for classical public procurement:

Article 48 governs prior information notices, including their use as calls for competition and the conditions under which they enable reduced time limits.
Article 49 establishes the contract notice as the mandatory form for calls for competition, specifying the required information content.
Article 50 mandates publication of contract award notices within 30 days of contract conclusion. Authorities may group CANs for contracts under framework agreements on a quarterly basis.
Article 51 addresses publication of modifications and the general procedures for notice dissemination through TED.

Article 52 addresses electronic availability of procurement documents, requiring contracting authorities to offer unrestricted, free, and direct access to procurement documents from the date of publication of the notice.

Implementing Regulation 2019/1780 establishes the eForms standard, replacing the previous Annexes to Implementing Regulation 2015/1986. The eForms regulation defines the specific fields, validation rules, and XML schema for each notice type. It introduced 40+ notice subtypes covering classical procurement, utilities, concessions, and defence.

The Remedies Directives (89/665/EEC and 92/13/EEC) interact with notice requirements by establishing that failure to publish a required notice can constitute grounds for contract ineffectiveness. If a contracting authority fails to publish a contract notice in TED when required, any resulting contract may be declared void by a review body.

In Germany, notice publication requirements are transposed through the VgV (Vergabeverordnung) for above-threshold classical procurement and the SektVO for utilities. Below-threshold notices follow Laender-specific rules. In France, the Code de la commande publique (Articles R2131-1 to R2131-16) establishes notice publication obligations and formats.

Practical Examples

A ministry of health publishes a prior information notice in January indicating its intention to procure medical imaging equipment worth approximately 15 million euros during the year. In April, the ministry publishes a contract notice using the restricted procedure, launching the formal competition. After evaluating requests to participate and inviting shortlisted candidates, the ministry awards the contract in September and publishes a contract award notice within 30 days announcing the winning supplier, the contract value of 13.8 million euros, and that seven tenders were received.

A city council issues a contract notice for annual landscaping services across municipal parks. After the deadline passes, the council discovers an error in the published submission address. It publishes a corrigendum correcting the address and extends the deadline by 10 days. Subsequently, the council decides to expand the scope to include tree maintenance and publishes a change notice with revised technical specifications and a further extended deadline.

A national IT procurement agency establishes a dynamic purchasing system for cloud computing services. It publishes a contract notice to establish the DPS, which remains open for the system's entire duration. Each time a specific contract is awarded through the DPS, the agency publishes a contract award notice. Over the DPS's four-year lifetime, the agency publishes over 60 individual CANs.

Key Considerations for Suppliers

Notices are the lifeblood of a supplier's business development pipeline. For a deeper introduction, see How to read a contract notice. Systematic notice monitoring is the foundation of any public procurement strategy. Suppliers should establish alert systems covering TED and relevant national platforms, configured by CPV codes, geographic regions, contract value ranges, procedure types, and keywords.

Timing is critical. The time limits for tender submission begin from the notice dispatch date (BT-05), not the publication date. In an open procedure, the standard minimum is 35 days, reducible to 15 days in certain conditions. Suppliers that identify opportunities only after TED publication have already lost up to 48 hours of preparation time.

Read the full notice carefully. While TED provides summary views, the full notice contains critical details about selection criteria, award criteria, lot structures, framework agreement terms, and submission instructions. The notice also indicates where to access the complete procurement documents.

Monitor change notices and corrigenda. Once a supplier has decided to pursue an opportunity, it must monitor for any subsequent publications that modify or correct the original notice. Missing a change notice that alters technical specifications or evaluation criteria can result in a non-compliant tender.

Analyse contract award notices. Even when a supplier does not bid on a specific contract, CANs provide valuable market intelligence: which competitors won, at what prices, how many tenders were submitted, and which buyers are active in specific sectors. This data informs pricing strategy, competitive positioning, and future bid/no-bid decisions.

Cross-border opportunities. The standardised eForms format makes it increasingly feasible for suppliers to identify and analyse opportunities across all 27 Member States. Suppliers active in construction, IT, and professional services should consider monitoring notices from multiple countries to expand their addressable market.

The contract notice is the most common notice type and the standard form for the call for competition. The contract award notice announces procurement outcomes. The prior information notice provides advance market signalling. Change notices and corrigenda modify or correct published notices. The procedure is the overarching procurement exercise to which notices belong. TED is the publication platform for EU-level notices. Thresholds determine whether TED publication is required. The VEAT notice provides transparency for direct awards.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take for a notice to appear on TED after dispatch?

TED publishes notices within 48 hours of receiving the dispatch (two working days). If the notice is dispatched on a Friday, it may appear on Monday or Tuesday. The contracting authority may publish the notice on its national platform at the same time as or after TED publication, but not before, to ensure that the EU-wide publication takes precedence and no operator gains an unfair head start.

Are below-threshold procurement notices published on TED?

No. TED is reserved for above-threshold procurement that falls within the scope of EU Directives 2014/24/EU, 2014/25/EU, and 2014/23/EU. Below-threshold notices are published on national platforms according to each Member State's domestic rules. However, some Member States voluntarily publish certain below-threshold notices on TED or use eForms-compatible formats for national publication.

Can a contracting authority withdraw a published notice?

A contracting authority can cancel a procurement procedure and publish a cancellation notice. However, it cannot simply "delete" a published notice from TED. The cancellation notice references the original publication and explains the reason for cancellation. Any tenderers who have already submitted offers must be notified. Cancellation is subject to legal constraints -- it must be based on genuine reasons and not used to circumvent procurement rules.

Want to monitor procurement opportunities? Start your free trial or subscribe to our newsletter for weekly insights.