Contract notice vs contract award notice: what each EU procurement notice tells you

A contract notice is the announcement in which a public buyer calls for competition and invites companies to tender; a contract award notice is the report, sent after the contract is signed, that names who won and for how much. The first tells you that something will be bought, the second tells you who sold it.

Putting it simply: read contract notices if you want to bid. Read contract award notices if you want to know which companies already sell your category in a country. A third type, the prior information notice, is an early heads-up about planned purchases.

Where it comes from

All three notices are defined in Directive 2014/24/EU, the EU's main public procurement directive, and are published on TED (Tenders Electronic Daily) for contracts above the EU thresholds. Since 25 October 2023, when the old standard forms were repealed, they are filed in the eForms standard set by Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1780 (Articles 2 and 3).

Article 49 says contract notices "shall be used as a means of calling for competition in respect of all procedures", subject to the exceptions for prior information notices and negotiated procedures without publication. Article 50(1) requires the award notice "not later than 30 days after the conclusion of a contract or of a framework agreement". Annex V Part D lists, among other items, the "number of tenders received with respect of each award", the name and address of "the successful tenderer(s)" and the "value of the successful tender (tenders) or the highest tender and lowest tender taken into consideration".

Two exceptions matter in practice. Contracts called off under a framework agreement do not need their own award notice (Article 50(2)), and Article 50(4) allows some information to be withheld when its release would impede law enforcement, be contrary to the public interest, harm the legitimate commercial interests of a company or prejudice fair competition. So a missing value or a framework without follow-up notices is normal, not an error.

Why it matters for a manufacturer

• Only the award notice is evidence of who sells. A contract notice records demand. The award notice records a concluded contract with a named supplier, a buyer and a date. That is why Cresques builds its market maps from award notices only (see /methodology).
• Read the winner from the contract, not the lot result. In eForms, a lot result can list every tender received, and TED's own rendering shows some of those companies as non-winning tenderers. We take the winner from the contract section of the notice. Our guide How to read a TED contract award notice shows where that is.
• The value may be a ceiling. For framework agreements the published amount is often the maximum, not a sale. Of the 1,604,107 award rows in the Cresques evidence view with an award date since 1 November 2023, 25.3% carry a framework maximum rather than an awarded value (computed 8 November 2026). More in Framework agreements: why the headline value is not sales.
• The number of tenders shows how contested a category is. In the 12 months to 6 November 2026, 31.0% of awards with a known tender count came from a single tender (Cresques evidence view).

Example

A regional hospital publishes a prior information notice in January announcing a purchase of patient monitors later that year. In April it publishes a contract notice with two lots, an estimated value and a tender deadline in May. Five companies tender. The contract for lot 1 is signed in July, and within 30 days the hospital sends a contract award notice: lot 1 went to a local medical distributor for the stated value, five tenders received; lot 2 was not awarded. Only the July notice tells a monitor manufacturer which company already supplies that hospital.

Related terms

• CPV codes explained and the CPV search
• Contract end dates as timing
• How to read a TED contract award notice
• Country pages, for example Germany