Ex-Post Notice (Contract Award Notice) 2026

Contract award notice: mandatory publication in the EU Official Journal after award. Deadlines, content and legal consequences under Austrian and German procurement law.

Definition: The ex-post notice (contract award notice or notice of awarded contracts) is the legally required mandatory publication in the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union (TED) by which a public contracting authority announces the outcome of a procurement procedure after its completion – in particular, the successful tenderer and the contract value.

Last updated: January 2026 · Legal basis: Art. 50 Directive 2014/24/EU, § 39 VgV, § 128 BVergG 2018

What is the ex-post notice?

The ex-post notice is the most important instrument of downstream transparency in EU procurement law and makes the use of public funds traceable for everyone. It is also referred to as a contract award notice or – in EU nomenclature – as a "notice of awarded contracts". The publication obligation applies to all awards in the EU above-threshold area, regardless of the procedure under which the contract was awarded.

The legal basis is set out in Art. 50 of the Public Procurement Directive 2014/24/EU and in the national implementing acts: § 39 VgV (Germany) and § 128 BVergG 2018 (Austria). The Utilities Directive 2014/25/EU and the Concessions Directive 2014/23/EU provide for analogous obligations.

Content of the contract award notice

The contract award notice must contain certain mandatory minimum information specified in Annex V of Directive 2014/24/EU.

Key mandatory information:

Item	Content
Contracting authority	Name, address, contact point
Procurement procedure	Type of procedure, notice number of the contract notice
Subject of the contract	CPV code, brief description, place of performance
Award outcome	Name of the contractor, contract value
Award criteria	Evaluation criteria applied
Number of offers	Number of offers received, of which submitted electronically
Date	Date of award

Sensitive information, such as certain price details for contracts requiring secrecy protection or information whose publication would harm an undertaking, may be omitted on reasoned request.

Deadlines

The contract award notice must be published no later than 30 days after the award.

This deadline applies in both the classical procurement area (Directive 2014/24/EU) and the utilities area (Directive 2014/25/EU). For framework agreements, the notice may be bundled: contracting authorities may consolidate the notices for individual contracts based on a framework agreement quarterly and then publish them within 30 days of the end of the quarter.

Publication

The contract award notice must be submitted via the electronic TED platform (Tenders Electronic Daily), which manages the Supplement to the Official Journal of the EU.

In Germany, submission is made via the German notice portal (DTVP) or directly via the EU Publications Office. In Austria, contracting authorities use the national eSender certification interfaces. Since the introduction of the eForms standard (EU Implementing Regulation 2019/1780), notices must be submitted in a standardised electronic format.

Distinction from the bidder information

The contract award notice is addressed to the general public; the bidder information, by contrast, is an individual communication to each unsuccessful bidder.

The two instruments complement each other: the bidder information under § 62 VgV or § 131 BVergG 2018 must be sent to all bidders without delay following the award decision and triggers the standstill period. The contract award notice serves general public transparency and has no deadline-triggering function.

Legal consequences of breach

A failure to publish, or an incorrect, contract award notice may give rise to supervisory measures and call into question the lawfulness of the procurement procedure as a whole.

While the lack of a contract award notice does not, as a rule, render an already concluded contract ineffective, it can be the starting point for damages claims by bypassed bidders and for supervisory proceedings by national procurement supervisory authorities.

Related terms

FAQ

Does the obligation to publish a contract award notice also apply to negotiated awards? Yes. Where the contract value exceeds the EU thresholds and the procedure was conducted as a negotiated procedure without prior publication, a contract award notice is nevertheless required.

Must the exact award price be published? As a rule, yes. Exceptions are possible where publication of the exact price would jeopardise legitimate business interests of the contractor. In such cases, a range can be given.

What is the difference between a contract award notice and a prior information notice? The prior information notice appears before the procedure and announces planned awards; the contract award notice appears after the procedure and provides information about the outcome.

Last updated: January 2026 All information without warranty. For legally binding advice, please consult a law firm specialising in public procurement law.