Contract Award Notice (CAN)

The Contract Award Notice closes the public record of a procurement procedure. Once a contracting authority has evaluated bids, selected a winner, and completed the standstill period (where applicable), it must publish a Contract Award Notice on TED within 30 days of signing the contract. This obligation applies to all above-threshold contracts in EU member states and EEA countries with equivalent procurement rules.

What is a Contract Award Notice (CAN)?

The Contract Award Notice is defined under Directive 2014/24/EU (Article 50), Directive 2014/25/EU, and Directive 2014/23/EU. It records the outcome of a completed procurement procedure and must include: the name and contact details of the winning contractor; the total contract value as awarded; the number of tenders received; and, in many cases, a summary of the reasons for selecting the winner.

Under eForms, the CAN maps to specific notice subtypes within the result notice family. The legacy equivalent was Standard Form 3. The eForms SDK mandates richer disclosure in eForms CANs than was required under legacy forms, including more detailed information about unsuccessful tenders and award criteria scores where these were used.

For framework agreements and dynamic purchasing systems, a single aggregated CAN may cover multiple individual call-off contracts awarded during a period, or separate CANs may be published per call-off depending on national implementation.

A CAN is distinct from a Result Notice, which is the eForms-era term for the same concept. In practice the two terms are often used interchangeably, with "Result Notice" being the more precise eForms designation.

Why CANs matter for bidders

Contract Award Notices are among the most commercially valuable procurement data sources available. They tell you who won a contract you competed for (allowing you to understand where your bid fell short), who won contracts you did not pursue (revealing active competitors), and what prices are being paid across the market (enabling realistic pricing benchmarks).

Reading CANs systematically in your target market enables competitive intelligence that would otherwise require expensive research. If a buyer consistently awards to the same two suppliers, that signals strong incumbent relationships. If award values consistently come in 20-30% below estimates, that signals a highly price-competitive market. If the number of tenders received is consistently low, that may indicate barriers you can exploit.

Unsuccessful bidders are entitled to a debriefing under Directive 2014/24/EU (Article 55), and the CAN provides the baseline against which to frame that debriefing request.

Example

A Dutch water authority publishes a Contract Award Notice for a three-year engineering services framework, awarded to a consortium of two firms at EUR 8.4 million against an estimated value of EUR 10 million. The notice records that five tenders were received. A competing engineering firm reads this CAN, notes the winning consortium, the price achieved, and the gap to the estimate, and uses this information to calibrate its strategy for the next similar procurement.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is publication of a CAN mandatory?

Yes, for above-threshold contracts covered by the EU public procurement directives. The obligation applies to open procedures, restricted procedures, negotiated procedures, competitive dialogue, and other regulated procedures. There are narrow exceptions for contracts awarded under framework agreements below a certain value.

How long after contract signature must the CAN be published?

Under Directive 2014/24/EU, the CAN must be submitted for publication within 30 days of concluding the contract or framework agreement.

Can I use CANs to find out what a competitor charged?

The contract value disclosed in a CAN is the total awarded value, not an itemised price list. For many contracts this gives useful market benchmarking data. However, unit prices and detailed pricing structures are not typically disclosed in the CAN itself. Debriefing processes may provide more granular scoring information.