Standard Form 2 (Contract Notice)

Standard Form 2 (SF2) was the primary legacy notice format for launching public procurement competitions in EU member states. It served as the Contract Notice for open and restricted procedures and other regulated procedure types under Directive 2014/24/EU, Directive 2014/25/EU, and their predecessors. From 25 October 2023, SF2 was replaced by eForms Competition Notices as the mandatory format on TED.

What was Standard Form 2 (Contract Notice)?

Standard Form 2 was prescribed under Commission Regulation (EU) No 1286/2011 and collected the essential information needed to launch a public procurement competition: the contracting authority's identity and contact details, the procedure type (open, restricted, competitive with negotiation, and so on), the subject matter and CPV codes, the time limits for receipt of tenders or requests to participate, the selection criteria, the award criteria, and access to tender documents.

SF2 was a relatively structured form but relied heavily on free text for key fields such as the description of the contract and the award criteria. This made automated data extraction inconsistent: the same information (for example, award criteria weights) might appear in very different formats across different authorities and member states, reducing the reliability of cross-border procurement data analysis.

The form structure also mixed administrative, procedural, and substantive procurement information in a single document without the clear hierarchical organisation that eForms introduced. For complex multi-lot contracts, SF2 required significant workarounds to capture per-lot information that eForms now handles natively through its lot-based data structure.

The transition from SF2 to eForms Competition Notices required contracting authorities and e-procurement systems to adopt the eForms SDK field structure, introduce coded values where SF2 accepted free text, and implement the new lot-level data model. The result is significantly more structured, consistent, and machine-readable competition notices.

Why Standard Form 2 matters for bidders

Standard Form 2 notices dominate the historical TED archive for competitions published before October 2023. Suppliers analysing markets, buyer behaviour, or competitor positioning using historical TED data will encounter large volumes of SF2 notices. Understanding their structure helps interpret historical search results, particularly when fields contain free text rather than the structured values now available in eForms.

Historical SF2 data also provides context for understanding incumbency in a market. If a buyer consistently used SF2 to award contracts to the same suppliers before 2023, that historical pattern (visible through published SF3 Contract Award Notices corresponding to each SF2 Contract Notice) informs competitive strategy for future procurements.

Example

In 2021, a Spanish regional transport authority published a Standard Form 2 notice on TED for the supply and maintenance of fare collection systems, estimated value EUR 15 million, open procedure, 35-day tender period. The SF2 described the award criteria in free text: "quality 60%, price 40%, with sub-criteria described in the tender documents." Under current eForms requirements, this information would appear in structured business term fields, making it directly extractable for market analysis.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I still find SF2 notices on TED?

Yes. TED maintains its historical archive. SF2 notices published before October 2023 remain accessible and searchable. For recent notices (from October 2023 onwards), eForms format notices are the standard.

Are SF2 and eForms Contract Notices legally equivalent?

Yes, in terms of their procurement law effect. An SF2 published before the eForms transition date had the same legal effect as an eForms Competition Notice published after that date: both formally open a public procurement competition and trigger the minimum tender period requirements under the applicable directive.

How do the mandatory fields differ between SF2 and eForms?

eForms generally requires more structured and granular disclosure than SF2. Key areas where eForms is richer include lot-level information, award criteria (structured fields with explicit weightings rather than free text), and organisation information (standardised identifiers). The eForms SDK documentation includes detailed mapping tables.