Contract Notice (CN)

A Contract Notice (CN) is the mandatory publication that formally launches a public procurement competition in the European Union. Any above-threshold contract must be advertised by a CN on ted before the authority can receive tenders, making it the starting gun for EU competitive procurement.

What is a Contract Notice?

The CN is published in the ojeu S series and made searchable through ted. It sets out the essential information suppliers need to decide whether to participate: the contracting authority's identity, a description of the requirement, the estimated contract value, the cpv codes, the procurement procedure being used, the selection-criteria that candidates must meet, the award-criteria that will determine the winner, and the deadline for bid or request-to-participate submission. Under eforms rules effective since 2023, the CN is a structured XML document rather than free text, meaning every field is machine-readable and available through the TED API.

For the open-procedure, the CN is the single publication that triggers the competition and sets the minimum 35-day (or 30-day where a PIN applies) submission clock. For the restricted-procedure and competitive-procedure-with-negotiation, the CN opens the first stage for expressions of interest or requests to participate.

Why a Contract Notice matters for bidders

The dispatch date on the CN is the anchor for all deadline calculations. EU directives set minimum periods in days from dispatch, and the authority cannot accept late submissions. Suppliers monitoring ted should track dispatch dates rather than publication dates, because the two can differ by a day. Reading the CN before downloading the full tender dossier is the efficient first filter: if the award criteria weighting, estimated value, or CPV scope does not fit a supplier's capability and commercial expectations, the no-bid decision can be made in minutes without investing hours in reading documents.

FAQ

What is the difference between a contract notice and a prior information notice?

A prior-information-notice is an advance signal of planned procurement and does not itself open the competition. The contract notice formally starts the competitive process and triggers the submission deadline.

What happens if a contracting authority makes a material change to a contract notice after publication?

The authority must publish a corrigendum on TED. If the change is material enough to alter the basis of competition, the submission deadline is typically extended to give suppliers time to adjust their bids.

Is a contract notice required for all EU procurements?

A CN is required for all above-threshold contracts unless an exemption applies, such as extreme urgency or direct award under a framework agreement or DPS.