Competition Notice (eForms)

The Competition Notice is the eForms lifecycle category for all notices that formally open a public procurement competition. It sits at the second phase of the four-phase eForms procurement lifecycle (planning, competition, direct award, result) and encompasses what legacy procurement terminology called the Contract Notice, along with equivalent call-for-competition publications for specialist procedures.

What is a Competition Notice (eForms)?

Under the eForms notice taxonomy, a Competition Notice groups together the family of notices that signal to the market that a formal competition has been launched and that suppliers can now participate. The principal notice in this category is the equivalent of the legacy Contract Notice (CN), which announces an open, restricted, or other regulated procedure and invites tenders or requests to participate.

The Competition Notice category also includes notices that serve as calls for competition under specific procedure types: the notice used to invite participants in a design contest (before eForms, sometimes labelled separately), notices for qualification system competitions under utilities rules, and other structured competition-opening publications defined in the eForms SDK.

Each Competition Notice maps to one or more notice subtypes. The eForms subtype determines exactly which business term fields are mandatory, optional, or conditional for that specific competition type and directive. A Competition Notice for a works contract under Directive 2014/24/EU has a different set of mandatory fields than a Competition Notice for a utilities service contract under Directive 2014/25/EU.

Upon publication on TED, each Competition Notice receives a Notice Publication ID and is linked to any prior Planning Notice for the same procedure via the Procurement Procedure Identifier, creating a traceable chain through the procurement lifecycle.

Why Competition Notices matter for bidders

The Competition Notice is the moment of action for most bidders. Once a Competition Notice is published, the clock starts running on response deadlines. For open procedures, you may have as few as 15 days (if the authority published a qualifying PIN) or up to 35 days to submit a complete bid. For restricted procedures, you first have a minimum of 30 days to submit a request to participate before being shortlisted.

Speed of awareness matters enormously. Suppliers who monitor TED and national portals in near-real time have more preparation time than those who discover opportunities days or weeks after publication. The difference between spotting a Competition Notice on day one versus day ten can mean the difference between submitting a strong, well-prepared response and rushing a weak one.

Example

A Czech regional authority publishes a Competition Notice for a five-year IT infrastructure services contract. The notice is published on TED as an eForms notice with subtype indicating an open procedure under Directive 2014/24/EU. The tender deadline is 35 days from publication. Suppliers registered for TED alerts in the relevant CPV category receive notification on publication day and begin their bid/no-bid assessment immediately.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a Competition Notice always the same as a Contract Notice?

In most cases, yes. The Competition Notice category in eForms includes the notices that, under legacy terminology, would have been called Contract Notices. There are also specialist competition-opening notices for design contests and other procedure types within the same eForms category.

What is the link between a Competition Notice and a Planning Notice?

They are linked via the Procurement Procedure Identifier. If a Planning Notice was published before the Competition Notice for the same procedure, both are tagged with the same procedure identifier, allowing the complete lifecycle of the procurement to be traced on TED.

Can a Competition Notice be cancelled?

Yes. If a contracting authority decides not to proceed with a competition after the Competition Notice has been published, it must publish a notice cancelling the procedure. Suppliers who have already invested in preparing a bid may have limited recourse unless the cancellation was improper.