Any cloud service provider seeking to offer cloud services to the German public sector will inevitably have to deal with the Supplementary Contractual Conditions for the Procurement of IT Services (Ergänzende Vertragsbedingungen für die Beschaffung von IT-Leistungen – “EVB-IT”). The EVB-IT were developed by the Federal/State/Local Cooperation Committee (Kooperationsausschuss ADV Bund/Länder/Kommunaler Bereich) in cooperation with the industry association BITKOM and are designed to establish standardized, legally robust contract frameworks for public IT procurement in Germany.
The primary purpose of the EVB-IT is to create legal certainty for both public contracting authorities and IT service providers. By providing predefined contractual structures, the EVB-IT facilitate procurement planning, enable reliable cost estimation and reduce legal risks in public-sector IT projects.
Growing Importance of Cloud Solutions in Public Administration
Cloud computing is becoming an increasingly important component of public-sector IT strategies in Germany. Recent studies show that while approximately 70% of public authorities still use cloud solutions cautiously – typically for less than 20% of their applications – this situation is expected to change significantly in the coming years. By 2028, more than half of German public authorities plan to increase the share of cloud-based applications to between 40% and 60%, while a further 16% anticipate that cloud solutions will account for more than 60% of their IT landscape.[1]
This rapid expansion highlights the growing relevance of cloud services such as SaaS, PaaS, IaaS and managed cloud services in the public sector.
Recognizing early on that cloud computing would become a cornerstone of public-sector IT, the EVB-IT framework was expanded in 2022 by introducing the EVB-IT Cloud – a contract standard tailored specifically to the realities of cloud-based services in public administration.
The EVB-IT Cloud consist of:
- the EVB-IT Cloud Contract,
- separate general terms and conditions,
- a comprehensive technical criteria catalogue, and
- additional annexes.
Since their introduction, the EVB-IT Cloud have become the authoritative standard contract for the procurement of cloud services by German public authorities. They are specifically tailored to the technical and regulatory characteristics of cloud computing.
Flexibility and Leeway Within the EVB-IT Cloud
Although the EVB-IT Cloud are standard terms, they give cloud service providers considerable leeway for contractual customization.
Unlike many other EVB-IT contract types, the EVB-IT Cloud explicitly allow certain elements of a provider’s own terms and conditions to take precedence. This applies in particular to:
- reporting obligations,
- service credit mechanisms in the event of unavailability, and
- license models and usage metrics, i.e. the way in which cloud consumption is measured and billed.
For cloud providers, this flexibility makes it possible to preserve important aspects of established contractual concepts and operational processes, helping to narrow the gap between public-sector contracts and agreements with private customers.
In addition, the technical criteria catalogue provides broad configuration options. It enables contracting authorities to specify requirements such as data localization, backup concepts, availability levels, response and recovery times, update mechanisms and cooperation obligations, with varying degrees of flexibility. In practice, the catalogue serves as a central instrument for tailoring the EVB-IT Cloud to the needs of each individual procurement project.
Is the Use of EVB-IT Cloud Mandatory?
Despite the flexibility built into the EVB-IT Cloud, cloud service providers often seek to apply their own standard terms as comprehensively as possible. However, public contracting authorities are subject to strict legal constraints under public procurement and budgetary law, particularly when procuring cloud services.
At the federal level, authorities are obliged to use the EVB-IT as the contractual basis for IT procurement. This obligation is derived from Section 55 of the Federal Budget Code (Bundeshaushaltsordnung) and the corresponding administrative regulations.
At state level, several federal states have introduced comparable obligations in their State Budget Codes (Landeshaushaltsordnungen) and related administrative regulations. The extent of this obligation, however, varies significantly between the federal states.
The following overview summarizes which German federal states have adopted budgetary rules mandating the use of the EVB-IT.
| Federal state |
Mandatory application |
| Baden-Württemberg |
Yes, if the estimated contract value
> EUR 10,000 |
| Bayern |
Yes, if the estimated contract value is < EUR 216,000 |
| Berlin |
No |
| Brandenburg |
Yes |
| Bremen |
Yes, but with the possibility of an exemption permit |
| Hamburg |
Yes |
| Hessen |
No |
| Mecklenburg-Vorpommern |
No, only recommended |
| Niedersachsen |
Yes |
| Nordrhein-Westfalen |
Yes |
| Rheinland-Pfalz |
Yes |
| Saarland |
Yes |
| Sachsen |
No |
| Sachsen-Anhalt |
Yes, for the direct administration of the state of Sachsen-Anhalt |
| Schleswig-Holstein |
No |
| Thüringen |
No, only recommended |
In federal states that have not introduced an explicit budgetary obligation to apply the EVB-IT, public contracting authorities enjoy greater contractual discretion. This discretion is nevertheless limited by general public procurement law, including the principles of transparency, equal treatment and competition.
In practice, even where the use of the EVB-IT is not formally mandatory, contracting authorities frequently continue to follow the EVB-IT structure or use it as a reference framework to ensure legal certainty, procedural consistency and lower internal effort.
Local authorities are generally not directly bound by the budgetary regulations applicable to federal or state authorities. As a result, municipalities may, in principle, decide independently whether to base their IT and cloud procurement on the EVB-IT.
Whether and to what extent the EVB-IT must be applied therefore depends on the budgetary and procurement rules applicable to the individual municipality, as well as on any conditions attached to funding programs or inter-administrative cooperation arrangements.
Conclusion for Cloud Service Providers
Even within a standardized contractual framework, if applicable, the EVB-IT Cloud offer substantial room for practical and commercial adjustments, most notably through the optional precedence of selected provider terms and the flexibility of the technical criteria catalogue.
From a provider’s perspective, the German public sector can therefore represent an attractive customer provided that the structure, objectives and negotiation logic of the EVB-IT Cloud are properly understood and actively utilized.
Cloud service providers that approach the EVB-IT Cloud not as rigid, non-negotiable specifications, but as a structured yet adaptable framework, significantly improve their chances of concluding public-sector cloud contracts that are both economically viable and legally robust.
[1] https://www.protector.de/oeffentliche-verwaltung-setzt-verstaerkt-auf-cloud-dienste; accessed on 02.02.2026.
[View source.]
