How to find out when a council or public sector contract ends

Updated 19 October 2026. Official sources checked 19 October 2026.

Step by step: the free official route

1. Search Contracts Finder for the awarded contract

   Go to Contracts Finder, enter a keyword such as cleaning (use quotes for an exact phrase, a space for OR, and + for AND), choose a region or a postcode radius, and tick Awarded contract under procurement stage. Open the notice: awarded notices show the contract start date, contract end date, the total value and the supplier it was awarded to.

   Contracts Finder covers contracts worth over £12,000 including VAT with central government and its agencies, or £30,000 for other public bodies such as councils. Notices posted before 26 February 2015 are not on it.

2. Check Find a Tender for newer and larger contracts

   Since 24 February 2025, notices for new UK procurements, above and below threshold, are published on Find a Tender (except below-threshold procurements in Scotland). Its Contracts search covers awarded contracts, active and expired, for procurements under the Procurement Act 2023.

   Under the Act, the buyer must publish a contract details notice within 30 days of entering into the contract (120 days for light touch contracts). It sets out the date or period over which the goods, services or works will be supplied, and the end date of any options to extend or renew. For contracts over £5 million a copy of the contract is published too.

3. Look at the council's own contract register

   Under the Local Government Transparency Code 2015, councils in England must publish details of every contract worth over £5,000, including the supplier, the value and the start, end and review dates. The data is published quarterly, no later than one month after each quarter. Search for "[council name] contract register".

4. Allow for extensions, then work back to the re-tender

   Check whether the date you have is the end of the initial term or the end of any extension options: a contract details notice gives both. The replacement procurement has to happen before the contract runs out, so start watching well ahead of the end date. Two Procurement Act notices help: a buyer that expects to spend more than £100 million in the coming financial year must publish a pipeline notice within 56 days of the start of that year, listing contracts over £2 million it plans to tender in the next 18 months; and when a contract ends, a contract termination notice must be published within 30 days.

5. Use the devolved portals for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

   Lower-value contracts in the devolved nations are on their own sites: Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales, and eSourcing NI or eTendersNI for Northern Ireland. GOV.UK's Contracts Finder page links to each.

What the free tools do, and what they leave to you

Contracts Finder and Find a Tender are free, and both let you save searches and get email notifications once you have an account (Find a Tender uses GOV.UK One Login). Those emails tell you about newly published notices. To see which existing contracts end in, say, the next 6 to 12 months, you still search the awarded notices yourself, open each one to read the end date, and repeat across Contracts Finder, Find a Tender and council registers.