Detailed EKR guide

When the EKR is mandatory

In every procurement and concession procedure. Under Section 40(1) of the Public Procurement Act (Kbt., Act CXLIII of 2015) these must be conducted in the EKR, and under Section 41(1) the contracting authority and economic operators communicate every declaration and item of information to each other by electronic means. The only exceptions are the cases listed below.

Exceptions to the main rule

The exceptions are frequently misquoted, so they are worth separating:

Kbt. s. 41/C A gap in the law

Points (e) and (f) of Section 41/C(1) of the Kbt. have been repealed and stand empty in the consolidated text. Running a procedure on paper because of a prolonged outage therefore no longer rests on that ground, yet the official EKR FAQ and the operator's fee refund notice both still cite point (e).

System usage fees

System usage fee under Section 1/A of Ministerial Decree 40/2017. (XII. 27.) MvM

Case	Gross	Net and VAT
Procedure conducted in the EKR	HUF 50,800	HUF 40,000 + 10,800
Call-off under a framework agreed outside the EKR	HUF 12,700	HUF 10,000 + 2,700
Retrospective publication after a procedure run outside the EKR	HUF 12,700	HUF 10,000 + 2,700
Waiver under Kbt. s. 31(5) or because of a published outage	HUF 0	none

Paying the EKR fee

The EKR identifier in the reference field

The fee may be paid only by bank transfer, to the account of the EKR operator. There is a single formal requirement, and it is the one most transfers fail: the reference field must carry the EKR identifier of the procedure. The operator asks that no special characters accompany it.

If a transfer cannot be identified, the system does not attach it to the procedure. The procedure then cannot proceed, the operator returns the amount within fifteen days, and the fee has to be paid again with the correct identifier.

Account number only from the operator

We deliberately do not reproduce the account number here. Copying another organisation's bank details and maintaining a second copy of them is needless risk: if the operator changes them, a transfer made from a stale copy goes to the wrong place and the procedure stalls. The figures are worth copying from the operator's own page every time: rendszerhasználati díj.

When it must be paid

Under Section 1/A(4) the fee must be paid by the time the initiating notice is sent in the EKR: for procedures started by notice, by the time it is dispatched to the Public Procurement Authority, and for those started without a notice, by the time it is sent to the economic operators. What counts is the day the amount is credited to the account, so initiating the transfer is not enough.

Non-payment and refunds

Where the fee has not been paid, or not in the prescribed amount, the operator is entitled under Section 1/B(1) to prevent the procedure from starting. The sole exception is a negotiated procedure without prior publication launched on grounds of extreme urgency.

Section 1/C provides for repayment within fifteen days in one case: where the contracting authority withdraws the initiating notice before publication and evidences this to the operator. Under Section 1/D, the fee for a procedure not launched within one year can be reclaimed in writing within 90 days after that year has passed. Refunding a double payment is the operator's practice, not a rule of the decree.

The request must be signed in company form and sent by post or through cégkapu. The operator states expressly that it cannot act on requests sent by e-mail. It issues neither pro forma invoices nor advance payment requests.

The tender deadline and the opening

These rules were rewritten by two separate amendments to Government Decree 424/2017. (XII. 19.), and the two dates do not coincide. The deadline window and the timing of the opening were set by Government Decree 427/2024. (XII. 23.) with effect from 1 March 2025. The rule that no tender can be submitted at all after the deadline expires came later, from Section 9 of Government Decree 371/2025. (XI. 28.), with effect from 2 December 2025. Under Section 35(14) the latter applies to procedures already under way at that date. Most EKR summaries online still give the earlier text.

The rules in force under Decree 424/2017 on deadlines and the opening

Question	The rule in force
When may the tender or participation deadline be set?	On a working day, at a time between nine in the morning and four in the afternoon.
When does the opening begin?	Sixty minutes after the deadline expires.
Can a tender be submitted after the deadline?	No. The tender must arrive electronically by the expiry of the deadline, the EKR confirms the time of arrival, and after expiry no tender can be submitted in the EKR.
Can the opening be repeated?	No, Section 5/B rules it out.

An exception in the operator's practice. According to the tenderer manual, in procedures launched before 1 March 2025, and in later call-offs under a framework agreement or dynamic purchasing system set up in such a procedure, the opening still begins two hours after the deadline. This is the operator's practice as recorded in its own manual, not a rule of Government Decree 427/2024, which has no transitional provision of this kind.

A contradiction worth knowing about. The official EKR FAQ still states: "Once 24 hours have elapsed after the tender deadline, not even a late tender can be submitted in the EKR." That sentence implies a late tender can still be submitted for twenty-four hours after the deadline. The text of Section 15(3) in force says otherwise. Anyone relying on the FAQ assumes room for manoeuvre that does not exist.

Our public procurement deadline calculator gives the minimum tender period and the deadline for requesting supplementary information, using the current working-day calendar.

Outages and deadline extensions

Section 16 of Decree 424/2017 governs what happens when the system is unavailable. The consequence is serious: in the listed cases the deadline does not expire, and the contracting authority must extend it.

The length of the extension is set by Section 16(4): it must leave adequate time, but at least two days from the notification of the extension where no amendment notice is required, apart from a negotiated procedure without prior publication, four days where the notice is published in the Hungarian Public Procurement Bulletin, and six days where it goes to the Official Journal of the European Union.

Types of fault

Section 22 of the decree distinguishes three states. The deadline rule above rests on only two of them.

Üzemszünet (planned maintenance)

Planned, published maintenance (Section 22(1)). It does not push the deadline back, so it has to be allowed for when the deadline is set.

Üzemzavar (outage)

An unplanned situation in which the EKR is only partly operable (Section 22(2)). The deadline rule above rests on it.

Működési hiba (operational fault)

An individual fault arising in a given procedure that prevents a procedural step from being taken (Section 22(3)). The deadline rule covers it too. Under Section 22(4), however, a fault arising solely within the contracting authority's or the economic operator's own sphere is not a működési hiba, so a problem with your own connection or browser does not push the deadline back.

Where the outage affects the opening rather than the deadline, Section 16(5) requires the EKR to carry out the opening immediately after service is restored.

The operator publishes current and closed outages on its own site rather than on ekr.gov.hu: scheduled and unscheduled outages. Section 16 refers to that publication, which makes it the primary evidence in any dispute over a deadline, including legal remedy proceedings.

EKR registration

Under Section 6(1) of Decree 424/2017, using the EKR requires registration, and registration is unified: the same natural or legal person may hold only one.

No Ügyfélkapu needed

The portal user manual (v3.19.1) walks through registration field by field, but nowhere records the point that matters most to a foreign or first-time economic operator: EKR registration requires no Ügyfélkapu, no KAÜ authentication, no AVDH and no qualified electronic signature. Login is by username and password. This is consistent with Section 41/A of the Kbt., which does not permit a contracting authority to require a qualified electronic signature as a general matter.

Mobile number and regular login

According to the portal manual, registering takes a mobile number verified by SMS, and confirming the e-mail address also asks for an SMS code. One phone number cannot belong to two users. The number field accepts a country code, but the manual does not address whether the SMS reaches a foreign number. After a failed login the system asks for a CAPTCHA, and after three more failures it suspends login for five minutes and asks for a security code sent by SMS. The rule most easily forgotten: an account with no login for 90 days is deactivated (the manual describes this as a system parameter, so it can change). A warning e-mail goes out first, but afterwards only the helpdesk can reactivate the account. An occasional tenderer should not leave the first login in months to the day of the deadline.

Contracting authorities

Contracting authorities are in a different position: under Section 6(2) the registration and data amendment of a contracting authority organisation is subject to approval by the Public Procurement Authority. No such approval applies to economic operators. Once registered, a contracting authority also publishes its annual procurement plan in the EKR, see our guide to internal procurement rules and the annual plan.

ÁKSZ, not FAKSZ

One terminological point that older summaries consistently get wrong: the advisor register is now called ÁKSZ (State Public Procurement Advisor). The Responsible Accredited Public Procurement Advisor (FAKSZ) is the former system: new registration has not been possible since November 2023, and the deadline of its transitional rules is 31 December 2026 (Section 197/E of the Kbt.). The main figure in the advisor register today is the ÁKSZ.

For economic operators, we handle EKR registration, user management and form completion as part of our service for tenderers.

Who can do what in the EKR

What a contracting authority can do, and what an economic operator can

Action	Contracting authority	Economic operator
Organisation registration	Subject to Public Procurement Authority approval	No approval required
System usage fee	Pays, per procedure	Pays nothing
Creating a procedure, sending the notice	Yes	No
Submitting a tender or request to participate	No	Yes
Rectification notice	Issues it	Responds to it
Access to the procurement documents	Publishes them	Yes, even without registration
Searching notices in the procedure archive	Yes	Yes, even without registration
Requesting alerts on new notices	Yes	Yes, even without registration

Alerts come in two variants with different lifetimes. Without logging in, you give a name and an e-mail address and pass a CAPTCHA, and according to the portal manual nothing is sent until you click the link in a confirmation e-mail. This variant lasts two months and can be renewed for another two through the link in the e-mail. Logged in, you first have to save the search. The alert is tied to that saved search, lasts six months, can be renewed without limit, and always goes to the account's login e-mail address.

Expiry is not silent. The manual describes two reminders, five calendar days and one day before expiry, although the interface itself mentions only the five-day notice. For watching a single procedure, the star is the more durable option: according to the manual, a logged-in user gets alerts on the notices of a procedure added to "Mentett eljárások" (saved procedures) with no expiry.

If you would rather not track renewals, our free EKR and TED tender alerts send new notices by e-mail every week, matched to your keywords and CPV codes. If you also want to know which new notices your company qualifies for, our tender monitoring service assesses them in writing every week.

Creating a procedure also carries a deadline that is easy to overlook: under Section 5/A the contracting authority may send the initiating notice for publication, or in a procedure without a notice the invitation to tender or to negotiate, within one year of creating the procedure in the EKR.

Submitting a tender in the EKR, step by step

The tenderer manual (Volume II, version 2.18.3) walks through the buttons in order, but rarely says which click cannot be undone, what happens in the background, or what the system will not do for you. The six steps below focus on those points. Our sources are the tenderer, contracting authority and portal manuals. The screenshots come from the live system in November 2026, with user names and the tenderer's identifiers removed. They show the Hungarian interface, so key labels are translated in brackets. Where a manual contradicts the law or another manual, we say so.

1. Finding and watching procedures

The procedure archive (Eljárástár) can be searched without logging in. The search box searches the full text of the notices. With several words it matches all of them by default ("Minden szóra keres", search for every word), and quotation marks give an exact phrase. The "Azonosító" (identifier) field takes a TED or Public Procurement Bulletin notice number as well as the EKR identifier. Besides procedures under the Kbt., the results include below-threshold purchases and preliminary market consultations. Our current public procurement notices page lists open EKR and TED calls together, filterable by CPV code.

Two filters do less than they promise

Two filters do less than their names promise. According to the portal manual, the "Teljesítés helye: NUTS" (place of performance) filter matches only places of performance recorded at lot level, and the "KKV-k számára alkalmas" (suitable for SMEs) and strategic filters work only for EU procedures and for national procedures launched after 1 September 2026. Filtering on them can therefore drop older national procedures. Alerts, saved searches and the star are covered above.

2. Data sheet, expressing interest, creating the tender

On the procedure's data sheet, the "Érdeklődés jelzése" (express interest) button works only when you are logged in, and only where your organisation may tender. Logged out, it is shown but disabled. You then pick the lead tenderer organisation, the lot and, where offered, anonymity, and the tender itself is created with "Ajánlat létrehozása" (create tender). According to the manual this click automatically starts the tender assembly step. In a single-stage procedure, interest and tender are therefore the same object in the system, but neither commits you to submitting.

Only a user with the organisation role "Új ajánlat tételt létrehozó" (tender creator) can create a tender. The user who registered the organisation gets it automatically, but a colleague who later joins through "Csatlakozás szervezethez" (join organisation) only becomes "Szervezeti tag" (organisation member), which grants nothing on its own. Even the organisation's superuser cannot see tenders without a tender-level role, although they can assign roles.

One tender per lot

A tender covers exactly one lot. If you tender for several lots, the manual has you handle a separate interest, a separate tender and a separate submission for each, and Section 20(4) of Decree 424/2017 requires a separate summary sheet (felolvasólap) per lot in any case. The manual describes no copying between lots. Declaration templates ("Nyilatkozat sablonok") are the way to reuse recurring declarations.

Interest is anonymous only if you ask

Before the opening, the contracting authority sees each interested party's name, seat and contact person. In procedures launched after 1 December 2024 you can avoid that by answering yes to "Anonim érdeklődő" (anonymous interested party), on the basis of Section 4(h) of Decree 424/2017. Anonymity ends as soon as you request supplementary information, send other communication or a request for preliminary dispute resolution, or submit, and at the opening in any case. It is not available in, among others, negotiated procedures without publication, design contests, purchases under a framework agreement or dynamic purchasing system, procedures under Section 115 of the Kbt. and below-threshold purchases.

3. Documents and procedural actions

Documents without registration

The procurement documents require no registration. Section 39(1) of the Kbt., as amended by Act XVIII of 2026, requires the contracting authority to make them available on the EKR's public surface, which needs no registration, directly, without restriction, in full and free of charge. The only exception is the templates of the declaration forms submitted in the EKR. Filling in the EKR forms and assembling the tender, on the other hand, take a login and an expression of interest. The tenderer manual still reads as if the documents too were reserved for logged-in parties, which is out of date against the Kbt. in force.

Inside the procedure, "Eljárás dokumentáció letöltése" (download procedure documentation) gives you a single zip file with the forms of the notice and the tender documentation plus every file the contracting authority attached, one folder per round. The manual does not say whether answers to clarification questions are included, so open those separately from the "Kiegészítő tájékoztatás nyújtása" (supplementary information provided) rows.

The notice alert is not enough

The "Kapcsolódó hirdetmények" (related notices) alert covers published notices only. Answers to clarification questions, and changes to the documents made without a notice, reach only the parties that expressed interest in the procedure. On top of that, according to the tenderer manual the EKR treats every closed procedural action, including a request to remedy deficiencies, as delivered even if the notification e-mail never arrives, and the operator asks tenderers to check the procedure in the system regularly. Two tools help: the "Határidők" (deadlines) menu lists upcoming deadlines and shows them on a calendar, and the "Gazdasági szereplő adatok aktualizálása" (AKAA, update economic operator data) action lets you add further contact e-mail addresses, which then receive every system message in the procedure.

4. Requesting supplementary information

A clarification question is started inside the procedure, with "Új eljárási cselekmény" (new procedural action) at the foot of the "Eljárási cselekmények" (procedural actions) page: choose the request for supplementary information (KTK) from the list, then "Indít" (start). The question goes in the "Leírás" (description) field, files can be attached, and "Értesítés küldése" (send notification) sends it. A request counts as sent only once its status reads "Kiküldve" (sent). Several questions can run in parallel.

The answer arrives as a "Kiegészítő tájékoztatás nyújtása" row and goes to every interested party, not only to whoever asked. For an anonymous interested party, asking ends the anonymity. According to the contracting authority manual, the EKR does not reject a question sent after the deadline, and whether to answer it is up to the contracting authority. Whether a late question must be answered is governed by Section 56 of the Kbt., not by the system.

5. Assembling the tender

Assembly starts with the economic operators, not the documents: until you press "Gazdasági szereplők rögzítése kész" (economic operators recorded), nothing else can be edited, even if there is nothing to change. This repeats in every later tender, rectification and modification action. The role recorded for each operator decides which declarations the system generates, and the lead tenderer fills in and submits the ESPD (EEKD) on behalf of every operator.

Before making the exclusion declarations, it is worth checking whether the company appears in the EKR registers. Inside a procedure the EKR's own "Közbeszerzési nyilvántartások ellenőrzése" (check procurement registers) button does this, while our tool searches the six central EKR registers by company name or tax number, outside any procedure.

The "Benyújtandó iratok jegyzéke" (list of documents to submit) shows only the EKR forms the contracting authority requested for the current phase. Any other document the notice requires goes in through "Új dokumentum csatolása" (attach new document). A few mistakes the system does not stop:

• The tick box. Every declaration needs "A nyilatkozatot be kívánom nyújtani" (I wish to submit this declaration) ticked. An unticked declaration is not submitted at all, not even blank. On submission the system warns and asks whether to continue.
• Decimal comma. The summary sheet (felolvasólap) needs a decimal comma. With a decimal point the system drops the decimals, and the fields accept only the format and number of decimals the contracting authority allowed.
• Uploads. At most 25 MB per document, with no accented or special characters in the file name. Every upload has to be closed with "Feltölt" (upload) or "Mégsem" (cancel), otherwise the action cannot be closed, and a file uploaded in a closed action can no longer be deleted. Each file also has to be flagged as containing a trade secret or not.
• Session. After six hours the system logs you out even if you are working, and after thirty minutes of inactivity unless you extend at the warning shown at minute 25. Unsaved data is lost. "Adatok formai ellenőrzése" (check data format) does not save, and "Mentés" (save) saves without checking.

6. Submission, reopening, confirmation

Submission starts with "Ajánlati dokumentáció rögzítése kész" (tender documentation recorded), which flags missing items in red. After "Benyújtás" (submit) the system asks for two mobile numbers, which receive the SMS code needed to reopen the tender later. Both fields are mandatory, and the two numbers may be the same. Once submitted, the tender's status becomes "A50 - Benyújtott ajánlat" (submitted tender), and the manual asks you to confirm this in the header.

A submitted tender is locked until the opening

The tender cannot be viewed or changed, not even by the tenderer. The only button left is "Ajánlat visszanyitása" (reopen tender), and the manual treats it as a withdrawal: it needs a five-digit code sent by SMS, works only until the deadline, and until the tender is resubmitted there is no valid tender. After reopening you can submit the original or a modified tender, or keep editing. Only the user who submitted the tender can start a modification. If that person or their phone is unavailable before the deadline, the manuals offer no way out, so choose the submitter and the numbers deliberately.

Amended documents mean resubmitting the tender

If the contracting authority changes the notice or the procurement documents, the operator's contracting authority manual says a tender already submitted must be reopened and resubmitted to match the change. The EKR shows a warning inside the tender, but the tenderer manual does not describe it. While a corrigendum notice awaits publication, you can neither submit nor withdraw, although you can still ask questions.

The confirmation

Submitting after the deadline is no longer possible in the system either, see the section on the deadline. Under Section 15(3) of Decree 424/2017 the EKR sends a confirmation of the time of arrival. None of the manuals shows what form it takes or where to find it later.

We handle clarification requests, the EKR forms to be submitted and the pre-submission check as part of our service for tenderers.

The official EKR documentation

The official EKR support materials are published on the support page. It currently links thirteen manuals, set out below. The figures are as at 9 November 2026. The manuals are under copyright, so we link to them rather than reproduce their content.

Core volumes

Manual	What it covers	Version	Length
Volume II, contracting authority	The full set of procedural actions on the contracting authority side	3.0	640 pages
Volume II, tenderer	The same on the tenderer side	2.18.3	167 pages
Portal	The surface available without logging in, the registers and the procedure archive, plus registration, login, organisations, users and roles	3.19.1	316 pages
eForms	Completing the EU notice templates	3.0	213 pages

Module manuals

Manual	What it covers	Version	Length
Electronic auction, contracting authority	Preparing and running an electronic auction	3.0	48 pages
Electronic auction, tenderer	Taking part in the auction	3.0	29 pages
Preliminary market consultation	Advertising and running the consultation in the EKR	2.19.1	75 pages
Contract manager and public contract register	Publishing contracts and their modifications	2.10.3	59 pages
eSzámla	Format validation of the electronic invoice	1.4	14 pages
Volume IV, below-threshold purchases	Handling purchases below the procurement threshold	V3	139 pages
Support functions	Functions supporting evaluation and checks: handover to the FAIR Közbeszerzés module, checks against the procurement registers, the ÁKSZ/FAKSZ points register	2.12	90 pages
Kbt. s. 111(w)	Purchases under Kbt. s. 111(w)	not stated	90 pages
Exporting award notice data	Field dictionary for the open data exports	13	244 pages

Four things are worth knowing before relying on any of them:

• The authority and tenderer volumes are not on the same version. The authority volume is at 3.0, the tenderer volume at 2.18.3. The two therefore describe different states of the system, and the divergence is not always flagged. One example: the tenderer volume still describes late submission up to the opening, although the authority volume's change log records that the EKR technically ended it on 2 December 2025. The tenderer volume was edited as recently as June 2026 without picking up this change.
• Outages are not covered. The highest-stakes scenario a tenderer can face is not addressed in substance in the manuals above. The only treatment is a single FAQ entry that cites a repealed provision.
• The technical requirements are out of date. The FAQ still specifies "at least Internet Explorer 9", Firefox 32 and Chrome 57. Internet Explorer went out of support in 2022.
• The version number does not always come from the document. The portal manual's own cover reads "Backend: 3.17.1 | Frontend: 3.17.1", and 3.19.1 is only the support-page label and the file name. The Kbt. s. 111(w) volume states no version at all. Seven of the manuals are protected against copying, and the auction and eSzámla volumes still describe the system as it stood between 2019 and 2021.

Helpdesk: +36 1 465 8899, working days between 8am and 4pm, or ugyfelszolgalat@ujvilag.gov.hu. For questions of procurement law they give ekr@nfk.gov.hu.