Standard Form 1 (Prior Information Notice)

Standard Form 1 (SF1) was the predecessor to the current eForms planning notice format. It was the prescribed form under Commission Regulation (EU) No 1286/2011 (and its predecessor regulations) for publishing Prior Information Notices on TED. From 25 October 2023, SF1 was replaced by eForms planning notices as the mandatory format for above-threshold procurement publications in EU member states.

What was Standard Form 1 (Prior Information Notice)?

Standard Form 1 was a semi-structured notice format that contracting authorities used to signal their planned procurement activity for the coming financial year or for specific anticipated contracts. Its function was equivalent to what is now handled by Planning Notices in the eForms framework.

The form collected relatively basic information: the contracting authority's identity, the subject matter of the planned contract, the estimated total value, the planned date for launching the competition, and the applicable procurement procedure type. Compared to its eForms successors, SF1 was lightly structured, with many fields accepting free text rather than coded values from controlled vocabularies.

As with its eForms equivalent, a published SF1 could trigger the reduced tender period mechanism: if a prior information notice had been published at least 35 days and not more than 12 months before a Contract Notice (Standard Form 2), the minimum time limit for receipt of tenders in an open procedure could be reduced from 35 days to 15 days. This incentive was intended to encourage early publication of planned procurement activity.

The transition to eForms brought richer structured data requirements. Where SF1 allowed free-text descriptions, eForms SDK planning notices require coded values, structured identifiers, and linked references to subsequent competition notices. This transition improved data quality and cross-border comparability but required significant changes to e-procurement systems across EU member states.

Why Standard Form 1 matters for bidders

For suppliers researching historical procurement data on TED, understanding Standard Form 1 helps interpret the archive of legacy notices published before October 2023. TED holds a substantial historical dataset of SF1 notices that can inform market analysis: identifying which buyers historically published advance planning notices, in which sectors, and with what typical lead times before launching competitions.

Many procurement analytics exercises draw on both legacy form data and eForms data, and recognising the format differences is essential for accurate interpretation. The structured eForms fields are more reliable for automated extraction; SF1 data often requires more interpretation because of its free-text nature.

Example

In early 2022, a Greek public works authority published a Standard Form 1 notice on TED announcing its intention to procure bridge maintenance services with an estimated value of EUR 4.5 million in the second half of the year. The prior information notice was published in February. When the Contract Notice (Standard Form 2) was published in July, the authority was able to use a 15-day minimum tender period in the open procedure because the SF1 had been published more than 35 days in advance.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Standard Form 1 notices still be found on TED?

Yes. TED maintains a historical archive of all published notices, including legacy standard form notices published before the eForms transition. SF1 notices published before October 2023 remain searchable on TED.

Were Standard Form 1 notices mandatory?

No. As with Prior Information Notices generally, publication of an SF1 was voluntary in most cases. The incentive was the reduced tender period in subsequent procedures, not a legal obligation to publish.

Is there a direct mapping from SF1 fields to eForms fields?

The Publications Office of the EU published mapping tables showing the correspondence between legacy standard form fields and eForms business terms. The mapping is not always one-to-one because eForms added new mandatory fields and restructured the information hierarchy compared to the legacy forms.