How to read a contract notice: the anatomy of an EU tender

Experienced bidders don't read tender notices - they interrogate them. A contract notice follows a standard structure, so the answers to your go/no-go questions always live in the same places. This guide walks through them in the order that saves you the most time.

First pass: the five-minute go/no-go

Before anything else, extract these seven facts:

1. Who is buying - the contracting authority, and whether they buy alone or as a central purchasing body for others.
2. What exactly - the title, the description, and the CPV codes. The main CPV tells you what the buyer thinks they are buying, which is what determines who finds the notice.
3. How much - the estimated value. Compare it with your delivery capacity and with the threshold logic: a value just under a threshold explains why a notice looks lighter.
4. Where - the place of performance (the NUTS region in the structured data). On-site services 800 km away change your cost base.
5. When - the submission deadline (date and hour, in the buyer's time zone) and the contract's duration or start date.
6. How they will choose - the procedure type and the award criteria: price only, or price/quality weighted, and by how much.
7. Any lots? - whether the contract is split into independent lots you can bid on separately.

If any of the seven kills the opportunity, stop there. That discipline is what lets a small bid team screen dozens of notices a week.

Second pass: the conditions that decide if you may bid

Exclusion and selection

The notice (and the procurement documents it links to) set two different bars:

• Exclusion grounds - the criminal-record, tax and social-security tests every bidder must pass. Standardised via the ESPD.
• Selection criteria - the minimums for this contract: turnover (capped by the directive at twice the contract value, with exceptions), insurance, references from similar work, key staff qualifications, certifications like ISO 9001/27001.

Read selection criteria with a highlighter. "Three references for comparable services in the last three years, each ≥ €100,000" is a yes/no gate: if you have two, your beautifully written bid goes straight to the bin.

Reliance and consortia

If you fail a selection minimum, the directives let you rely on other entities - a parent company's turnover, a subcontractor's references - or bid as a consortium. The notice or documents explain the required commitment forms. This is the single most under-used tool by small bidders.

Third pass: the details that shape your price

• Contract duration, renewals and options. A 1-year contract with three 1-year renewal options is, commercially, a 4-year relationship - but only the first year is guaranteed.
• Variants. May you propose an alternative solution? Only if the notice explicitly allows variants.
• Performance conditions. Delivery penalties, SLAs, staff-transfer (TUPE- like) obligations, security clearances, green or social clauses - these live in the draft contract among the procurement documents, and they cost money. Price them, don't discover them.
• Payment terms. Public buyers must generally pay within 30 days (60 for some entities) under the Late Payment rules - but verify milestones and invoicing mechanics in the draft contract.

The clock: deadlines inside the deadline

The submission date is not the only date that matters:

• Questions cut-off. Buyers answer clarification questions until a stated date, typically 6-10 days before submission. Ask early; answers are shared with everyone and become part of the tender.
• Site visits. Mandatory visits (common in works and facility services) happen weeks before the deadline; missing one can exclude you.
• Corrigenda. Buyers amend notices - deadlines move, documents change. Any serious monitoring setup must catch corrections, not just new notices.

Where the rest of the documents live

The notice links to the procurement documents on the buyer's platform: the full specifications, the draft contract, the forms, the pricing template. The notice is the map; the documents are the territory. A tender is only readable when you have both - if the link is dead or access requires registration that takes days, sort that out on day one, not day twenty-five.

A worked reading order

1. Deadline → do we have enough runway?
2. CPV + description → is this our business?
3. Value + duration → is it worth the effort?
4. Selection criteria → are we allowed to win?
5. Award criteria → how do we win - price or quality?
6. Draft contract → any deal-breaking clause?
7. Everything else.

Read ten notices this way and it becomes reflex. On Licitop, the key facts - deadline, value, buyer, CPV, place - are extracted into the summary card on every tender page precisely so that steps 1-3 take seconds; the deep reading still belongs to you.