Option in Public Procurement Law
An option is a reserved additional service or contract extension that must be included in the contract value estimate and transparently disclosed in the notice.
Definition: An option in the procurement law sense is a unilateral right of the contracting authority to expand the scope of the contract by calling off reserved additional services or to extend the contract term. It must already be taken into account when estimating the contract value and selecting the procurement procedure, and must be transparently disclosed in the contract notice.
Last updated: January 2026 · Legal basis: Art. 72 Directive 2014/24/EU, § 149 BVergG 2018 (Austria), § 132 GWB (Germany), § 2 para. 7 VOB/B
What is an option?
An option is the contractually reserved right of the contracting authority to call off additional services or extend the contract term unilaterally and without a new procurement procedure, provided that the conditions and scope of the option are already clearly and precisely described in the original procurement documents. Options are a central flexibility instrument in public procurement: they allow the contracting authority to react to changing requirements without having to conduct a new procurement procedure.
A distinction must be drawn between extension options (e.g. extending a cleaning contract from 2 to up to 4 years) and expansion options (e.g. calling off additional software modules). In both cases, the contracting authority must describe the optional element sufficiently at the time of contract conclusion; retroactively added options or material changes to the subject matter of the option are not permissible under procurement law.
An option must be distinguished from a supplemental order (Nachtrag): a supplemental order is a change or extension of services agreed after contract conclusion that was not reserved from the outset. Supplemental orders are only permitted within the narrow limits set out in Art. 72 Directive 2014/24/EU (in Austria § 149 BVergG 2018, in Germany § 132 GWB).
Significance in the procurement procedure
The value of all envisaged options must be included in the estimate of the total contract value, since otherwise the deliberate outsourcing of services into options could be used to circumvent thresholds. Art. 5 para. 1 of Directive 2014/24/EU clarifies that all options and extension clauses must be taken into account when calculating the contract value. In Austria, § 15 BVergG 2018 specifies the methodology for estimating the contract value accordingly; in Germany, § 3 VgV regulates the same.
Options must be transparently disclosed in the contract notice: contracting authorities are required to indicate both the nature and – as far as possible – the scope and the timeframe for exercising the option. If this information is missing, the exercise of an option may be classified as an impermissible material amendment to the contract, which in extreme cases constitutes a de facto award without competition and leads to breaches of procurement law.
The deadlines and conditions set out in the procurement documents apply to the exercise of an option by the contracting authority; a late call-off or modification of the option conditions is impermissible under procurement law and may give rise to claims for damages on the part of the contractor.
Related terms
Last updated: January 2026 All information without guarantee. For legally binding advice, please consult a law firm specialising in public procurement law.
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