Supplement to the Official Journal (OJ S)

The OJ S is the procurement heartbeat of the European single market. Published every working day by the Publications Office of the European Union, it is the channel through which contracting authorities across 27 EU member states formally advertise above-threshold procurement opportunities. Access is free, the content is authoritative, and for suppliers monitoring European public sector markets, it is an indispensable daily reference.

What is the Supplement to the Official Journal (OJ S)?

The OJ S is the S Series of the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). It contains four main types of notice relevant to procurement:

Prior Information Notices (PINs). Published in advance of a procurement to give the market early visibility, sometimes used as a call for competition in restricted procedures to reduce subsequent deadlines. PINs feed procurement pipeline publication obligations in practice.

Contract Notices (CNs). The formal advertisement of an open competition. These trigger the mandatory publication requirement for above-threshold contracts and set the response deadline.

Contract Award Notices (CANs). Published within 30 days of contract signature, identifying the winner, the contract value, and the number of tenders received.

Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency (VEAT) Notices. Used when an authority awards a contract without prior publication (for example, under a negotiated procedure without competition) and wishes to protect the award from ineffectiveness challenges by voluntarily disclosing the award before signing.

The OJ S is delivered online via TED (Tenders Electronic Daily), at ted.europa.eu. TED provides structured search, CPV-code filtering, country filtering, and e-mail alert subscriptions. All notices are published simultaneously in all 24 official EU languages, with the original language version being authoritative.

Why it matters for bidders

For any supplier active in European public procurement, the OJ S via TED is the primary opportunity feed. Because publication requirements under Directive 2014/24/EU and Directive 2014/25/EU mandate OJ S publication for all above-threshold contracts, systematic monitoring of TED captures the vast majority of significant European public sector opportunities.

The structured, machine-readable format of TED notices also makes the OJ S amenable to automated monitoring. CPV codes, country codes, authority types, and procedure codes are all tagged fields, allowing suppliers to build precise alert profiles rather than reading every notice manually.

Example

A Belgian cybersecurity company targets IT security contracts with central government authorities in France, the Netherlands, and Germany. It sets up a TED alert for CPV codes 72200000 (software programming and consultancy services) and 72500000 (computer-related services), filtered to those three countries and contract values above EUR 221,000. Each morning it receives a digest from the OJ S of new opportunities matching those criteria.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the OJ S still used for UK contracts after Brexit?

No. Since 1 January 2021, UK contracting authorities publish above-threshold notices on Find a Tender Service (FTS) rather than TED/OJ S. Historical UK notices remain searchable in TED's archive. Suppliers monitoring both EU and UK markets must check both TED and FTS.

How are OJ S notices formatted?

Since 2022, notices are submitted using eForms, the EU's standardised electronic forms system. eForms replace the older standard forms and provide richer structured data fields, including sustainability indicators, options information, and more granular sub-type classifications. Contracting authorities submit via the eNotices2 portal or authorised eSender systems.

Can I rely solely on OJ S/TED for below-threshold opportunities?

No. Below-threshold contracts follow national publication requirements and appear on national portals (such as the UK's Contracts Finder, France's BOAMP, or Germany's DTVP). The OJ S covers above-threshold contracts only. A complete market monitoring strategy combines TED with the national portals of your target markets.