What are the different public procurement procedures?

Verified 01 January 2026 - Entreprendre Public Service / Directorate of Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)

Public contracts are contracts between a public buyer (State, local authorities or museums, universities, hospitals) and an economic operator (for example: VSE, SMES). These contracts are used to meet a public purchaser's need for works, supplies or services. The estimated amount of the public contract determines the award procedure: procedure without prior advertising or competitive tendering, adapted procedure contract (Mapa), formalized procedure.

These are “small amount” contracts or contracts that concern specific areas.

In this type of procurement, the public purchaser does not advertise and compete. However, it must always comply with the following public procurement principles:

  • Choosing a relevant offer that is consistent with the public purchaser's needs
  • Respect for the principle of the proper use of public funds
  • No systematic call to the same service provider when there are different offers that can meet the public buyer's needs

Contracts awarded without prior advertising or competitive tendering may give rise to negotiation which shall be conducted in accordance with the principle of equal treatment of all tenderers.

This type of contract is a benefit for the company because it can be consulted directly for an order, on the basis of a simple request for a quote for example.

“Small Amount” Contracts

“Small amount” contracts are the following:

  • Markets of supplies, services satisfying a need the amount of which is less than €40,000 HT: titleContent. Also concerned are batches less than €40,000 HT: titleContent and whose cumulative amount does not exceed 20% the estimated total value of all lots.
    There is a specificity for the markets of supplies of non-school books. Buyers may enter into this type of contract, for their own needs or for the enrichment of the collections of public libraries, the value of which is less than €90,000 HT: titleContent.
  • Works contracts satisfying a need whose estimated value is less than €100,000  HT: titleContent. Lots that involve work of a lower amount €100,000 HT: titleContent shall not exceed 20%  the estimated total value of all lots.

Contracts in specific areas

The specific areas concerned are:

  • Innovative works, supplies or services satisfying a need whose estimated value is less than €100,000 HT: titleContent. An innovative market is a technological product or process innovation or an organizational innovation linked to digitalization. The batches less than €80,000 HT: titleContent for innovative supplies or services or to €100,000 HT: titleContent for works innovative are also concerned.
  • Contract awarded in the absence of an admissible application proposed on time (no offer, inadmissible application, inappropriate offer)
  • Works, supplies or services that can only be provided by a single determined company. This concerns the acquisition of a work of art, supplementary delivery or similar service by the original supplier
  • Purchase of supplies or services in particularly advantageous conditions with the company in permanent cessation of activity or in judicial recovery, or bankruptcy or in backup procedure
  • Service contract with one or more winners of a competition
  • Realization of similar services those entrusted to the holder of a previous contract awarded after a call for competition
  • Purchase of products manufactured for the purpose of research, experimentation, study or development

Contracts awarded without prior advertising or competitive tendering may give rise to negotiation which shall be conducted in accordance with the principle of equal treatment of all candidates.

Contracts awarded in case of urgent emergency

The public purchaser is exempted from the formalities of advertising and competitive tendering in cases of urgent need which do not allow the deadlines required by the formalized procedures to be met.

Urgency is imperative when the following 3 conditions are met:

  • Existence of a unpredictable event (storm Xynthia in 2019, flood or earthquake)
  • Incompatible emergency with the time limits required by other procedures
  • Link of causality between the unforeseeable event and the resulting emergency

Imperative urgency is limited to external, unpredictable and irresistible phenomena (e.g. natural disaster, flood or earthquake). These situations warrant immediate action. Buyers may, for example, go through these contracts to undertake the rehabilitation of severely damaged roads, consolidate structures that threaten to collapse, undertake disaster relief actions (temporary accommodation solutions, distribution of meals, etc.) or restore the functioning of the networks.

Works contracts made urgently necessary may be awarded without advertising or competition in the following cases:

  • Existence of an imminent point danger to public health
  • Use of premises or facilities presents a danger to the health or safety of their occupants
  • Imminent danger to the health or safety of occupants related to the unsanitary situation of a building

FYI  

Contracts awarded without competition on this ground should be limited to strictly necessary services in order to cope with the urgency of this emergency.

The Mapa (or adapted procedure contract) is a contract whose amount before tax is between €40,000 and formalized procedural thresholds. Each public purchaser is free to define its own rules in accordance with the general principles of public procurement (equal treatment of candidates, transparency of procedures, equal access to public procurement).

There are Mapa according to the amount public procurement and Mapa according to the type of markets.

Mapa according to the amount of public contracts

The procedures are adapted for contracts whose amount is between €40,000 HT: titleContent and the following thresholds:

  • €5,404,000 HT for public procurement of works (State and local authorities)
  • €140,000 HT for public procurement of supplies or services of the State
  • €216,000 HT for public procurement of supplies or services of local authorities
  • €432,000 HT for public procurement of supplies or services of network operators, defense or security services

Beyond these thresholds, the formalized procedure applies.

Mapa due to the type of markets

Whatever the estimated value of the contract, the following contracts may be awarded according to an appropriate procedure:

  • Markets of social and other specific services. These include services related to one of the following areas:
    • Health, social or health care
    • Administrative, educational or cultural
    • Hospitality or restaurant
    • Legal (administrative services of the courts)
    • Penitentiary
    • Postal
  • Services of legal representation of the public purchaser in a contentious or amicable procedure. It can also be a legal consultation.
  • Some defense and security contracts. In particular, the following services are not concerned (maintenance and repair, ground, air and rail transport, telecommunications, IT and research, building cleaning and property management services).

The formalized procedure is applicable to supply, service and works contracts whose amount before tax exceeds the financial thresholds established by the European Commission. These thresholds are updated every 2 years and published in the Official Journal in the form of an opinion.

What are the thresholds for formalized procedures?

The use of a formalized procedure is mandatory for the following contracts:

  • Public supply and service contracts of central public authorities (President of the Republic, Prime Minister, Ministers and other collaborators) of an amount equal to or greater than €140,000 HT: titleContent
  • Public supply and service contracts awarded by a local authority or a public health establishment in an amount equal to or greater than €216,000 HT
  • Public supply and service contracts of contracting entities (companies operating networks in water, electricity, transport, gas) of an amount equal to or greater than €432,000 HT
  • Public works contracts of an amount equal to or greater than €5,404,000 HT

What are the 3 types of formalized procedures?

Where the estimated value of the contract is equal to or higher than the European thresholds, the contract shall be awarded in accordance with one of the following formalized procedures:

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Call for tenders

Open tender

The invitation to tender shall be open when any supplier submits an application and an offer at the same time.

In this case, the minimum time limits to submit applications and offers are as follows:

  • 35 days from the sending of the contract notice by the buyer
  • 30 days if applications and tenders are submitted electronically
  • 15 days where a duly justified emergency makes the minimum time limit impossible to meet

This minimum period may be reduced to 15 days if the buyer has published a pre-information notice or a periodic indicative notice which has not been used as a call for competition notice.

Restricted RFP

The call for tenders shall be restricted when only pre-selected candidates by the buyer may submit an offer.

The pre-selection shall be made on the basis of the economic operator's turnover, professional skills, human and technical resources.

In this case, the minimum time limits for submit the application are as follows:

  • 30 days from the sending of the contract notice or the invitation to confirm the interest in the contracting authority
  • 15 days from the sending of the contract notice or the invitation to confirm the interest in the procuring entity

The minimum period of submission of tenders is as follows:

  • 30 days from the date of sending the invitation to tender for the contracting authority If offers are forwarded by electronic means, the minimum time limit shall be 25 days.
  • 10 days when a justified emergency makes the minimum time limit impossible to meet.
  • 10 days if the buyer publishes a pre-information notice that meets different conditions

Procedure with negotiation

In this procedure, a buyer negotiates the terms of the public contract with one or more economic operators.

The buyer must indicate in the consultation documents the minimum requirements to be met by tenders. Those requirements are sufficiently precise to enable the economic operator to determine the nature and scope of the public contract and to decide to participate in the procedure.

Negotiation procedure by a contracting authority

The contracting authority may award contracts under the procedure with negotiation in the following cases:

  • A need that cannot be met without adapting immediately available solutions
  • Need that consists of a innovative solution (new or substantially improved works, supplies or services carried out with new production or construction processes)
  • A contract that includes design services
  • A contract that cannot be awarded without prior negotiation due to special circumstances related to its nature, complexity or legal and financial arrangement or due to the risks associated with it
  • Contract with technical specifications that cannot be precisely measured by the contracting authority,
  • Following a tendering procedure in which only irregular or unacceptable tenders have been submitted, the buyer may enter into a new contract without its initial terms of the contract being altered too much.

The time limit for receipt of applications shall be 30 days from the date of dispatch of the contract notice or the date of dispatch of the invitation to confirm interest if the call for competition has been the subject of a pre-information notice.

As to the time limit for receipt of tenders, it shall be 30 days from the date of dispatch of the invitation to tender (25 days if sent electronically). This period may be reduced to 10 days in case of emergency. It shall also be reduced to 10 days if the buyer publishes a pre-information notice which has not been used as a call for competition at least 35 days before the publication of the contract notice. This pre-information notice must contain the same information as the contract notice.

The contracting authority shall negotiate with all tenderers their initial and subsequent tenders. He can't negotiate the final offer.

However, it may award the contract on the basis of the initial offers without negotiation, if it has indicated in the contract notice or in the invitation to confirm the interest that it reserves the possibility not to negotiate. Where the contracting authority wishes to conclude negotiations, it shall inform the remaining tenderers and set a common deadline for the submission of any new or revised tenders.

Negotiation procedure by a procuring entity

The contracting entities may freely use the negotiation procedure.

The time limit for receipt of applications is of 15 days from the date of dispatch by a procuring entity from the contract notice or the date on which the invitation to confirm interest was sent if a pre-information notice was issued for the call for competition.

As for the deadline for receipt of tenders, it may be fixed by common agreement with the selected candidates, provided that the time limit is the same for all.

In the absence of an agreement, the procuring entity shall fix a time limit which shall not be less than 10 days from the date of dispatch of the invitation to tender.

The procuring entity may award the contract on the basis of the initial tenders without negotiation, provided that it has indicated in the contract notice or in the invitation to confirm the interest that it reserves the possibility of not negotiating.

Competitive dialog

Competitive dialog is the procedure by which the buyer dialog with admitted candidates to participate in order to define or develop solutions to meet its needs. Candidates are invited to submit an offer based on these solutions.

The buyer can use this procedure when he cannot establish the technical means to meet his need (or the legal or financial arrangement of his project).

It defines its need in the contract notice or in a partial project, to allow it to select candidates. The buyer then opens a dialog with the candidates to develop one or more solutions. It is on this basis that participants submit an offer.

It takes place in 3 phases:

  1. Submission of applications (minimum period of 30 days from the dispatch of the contract notice)
  2. Opening of the dialog with the selected candidates, until the buyer is able to identify the solution(s) likely to respond to the need
  3. Invitation to submit a final offer

Participants may be asked for details or supplements on their final offer. However, these requests cannot have the effect of modifying the essential aspects of the final offer, such as the buyer's needs and requirements.

The purchaser may provide bonuses for the benefit of the participants in the dialog. The amount of the premium is indicated in the consultation documents. The remuneration of the contract holder shall take account of any premium paid to him for his participation in the procedure.

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