Standard Form 3 (Contract Award Notice)

Standard Form 3 (SF3) was the legacy notice format for publishing Contract Award Notices on TED. It recorded the outcome of completed public procurement procedures, identifying the winning contractor, the awarded contract value, and the number of tenders received. From 25 October 2023, SF3 was replaced by eForms Result Notices as the mandatory award outcome format for EU member state procurement.

What was Standard Form 3 (Contract Award Notice)?

Standard Form 3 was prescribed under the same Commission Regulation framework as Standard Form 1 and Standard Form 2. It served as the post-award transparency publication for contracts awarded under open procedures, restricted procedures, competitive procedures with negotiation, competitive dialogue, and innovation partnerships covered by Directive 2014/24/EU and Directive 2014/25/EU for utilities.

SF3 collected core award information: the contracting authority's identity; the procedure type used; a description of the contract; the number of tenders received and the number of tenders from SMEs (where applicable); the name and address of the successful tenderer; the contract value as awarded; and, where applicable, information about subcontracting arrangements.

Like Standard Form 2, SF3 relied heavily on free text in key fields. Award criteria were often described narratively rather than in structured coded values, and cross-contractor comparisons were difficult to automate at scale. The transition to eForms Result Notices introduced significantly richer structured data: each lot's outcome is recorded separately, tender values are structured numeric fields, and award criteria scores are captured in defined business term fields where applicable.

The SF3 archive on TED constitutes one of the most commercially valuable public datasets in European procurement. It contains award records stretching back to the early 2000s, providing a long-run record of public spending patterns, incumbent supplier positions, market pricing, and competitive intensity across every member state and sector.

Why Standard Form 3 matters for bidders

Standard Form 3 data underpins most historical competitive intelligence exercises in European procurement markets. When suppliers analyse who has won contracts in a target sector, at what prices, and against how many competitors, they are typically working primarily with SF3 data for historical periods (pre-October 2023) and eForms Result Notice data for more recent awards.

For suppliers entering a new market or targeting a new buyer, the historical SF3 archive provides the context they cannot get from any other source: who the incumbents are, what contract values look like, how competitive the award process typically is, and how often contracts go to the same suppliers.

Understanding the limitations of SF3 data (free text in many fields, inconsistent formatting across member states) helps avoid overconfidence in automated extraction and supports more accurate manual analysis where needed.

Example

A Lithuanian IT company analysing the Polish public sector IT market uses TED to search SF3 notices for software development services contracts in Poland from 2018 to 2023. The search returns several hundred SF3 award notices. The company identifies the five most active buyers, the three most frequent winners, the typical contract value range (EUR 200,000 to EUR 2 million), and the typical number of tenders received (three to seven). This analysis informs its market entry strategy before it identifies specific eForms competition notices to pursue.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are SF3 notices still available on TED?

Yes. The full historical archive of SF3 notices remains accessible and searchable on TED. For awards published from October 2023 onwards, the equivalent eForms Result Notice is the current format.

Does SF3 include information about unsuccessful bidders?

No. SF3 (like its eForms equivalent) records the winning supplier but does not publicly disclose the identities of unsuccessful bidders. Unsuccessful bidders may request debriefings directly from the contracting authority, but this information is not part of the public notice.

How do I combine SF3 historical data with current eForms data in market analysis?

Procurement platforms that index both legacy and eForms data normalise the key fields (contract value, CPV code, buyer, winner) into a consistent format, enabling combined historical and current analysis. Direct TED searches can also be filtered by notice type and date range to retrieve either legacy or eForms records.