Abstract In this article, we employ discontinuous Galerkin methods for the finite element approximation of the frictionless unilateral contact problem using quadratic finite elements over simplicial triangulation. We first develop a posteriori error estimates in the energy norm wherein, the reliability and efficiency of the proposed a posteriori error estimator is addressed. The suitable construction of the discrete Lagrange multiplier 𝝀 𝒉 {\boldsymbol{\lambda_{h}}} and some intermediate operators play a key role in developing a posteriori error analysis. Further, we establish an optimal a priori error estimates under the appropriate regularity assumption on the exact solution 𝒖 {\boldsymbol{u}} . Numerical results presented on uniform and adaptive meshes illustrate and confirm the theoretical findings.