What are the different public procurement procedures?

Verified 01 July 2026 - Entreprendre Service Public / (Prime Minister)

Public contracts are contracts between a public buyer (State, local authorities or museums, universities, hospitals) and an economic operator (for example: VSE, PME) to meet a 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 relate to specific areas.

In such contracts, the public purchaser does not advertise and put out to competition. However, it must always respect the following principles of public procurement:

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

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

This type of contract is a advantage 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 meeting a requirement that is less than €60,000 HT. Also concerned are batches of an amount less than €60,000 HT: titleContent and the cumulative amount of which does not exceed 20% the estimated total value of all lots.
    There is a specificity for 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 libraries hosting the public, the value of which is less than €90,000 HT: titleContent.
  • Works Markets satisfying a need whose estimated value is less than €100,000 HT: titleContent. Lots that involve works of less than €100,000  HT: titleContent must not exceed 20% the estimated total value of all lots.

Warning  

From 1er January 2027, public purchasers will be able to award works contracts without advertising or competition up to €140,000 HT.

Contracts in specific areas

Contracts in certain specific areas are awarded by mutual agreement. These are:

  • Innovative market : the threshold for innovative markets was raised on 1er July 2026. Buyers can enter into innovative contracts without advertising or competition up to €140,000 HT.
    For the batches for innovative markets, the thresholds are as follows:
    • For the markets of works innovative, batches less than €140,000 HT can be passed over the counter.
    • For the markets of supplies and services innovative, these are batches less than €80,000 HT which have passed over-the-counter provided that the cumulative amount of such consignments does not exceed 20% the total value of the lots.
  • 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, the additional delivery or similar service by the original supplier
  • Purchase of supplies or services in particularly advantageous conditions with the company in definitive cessation of activity or in judicial reorganization, or bankruptcy or in backup procedure
  • Service contract with one or more winners of a competition
  • Realization of similar benefits those awarded 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 a negotiation which is conducted in accordance with the principle of equal treatment of all candidates.

Contracts awarded in the event of an urgent emergency

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

Urgency is imperative where the following 3 conditions are met:

  • Existence of an unpredictable event (storm Xynthia in 2019, flood or earthquake)
  • Emergency incompatible with the deadlines required by other procedures
  • Causal link between the unforeseeable event and the resulting emergency

Urgent urgency is limited to external, unpredictable and irresistible phenomena (e.g. natural disaster, flood or earthquake). These situations warrant immediate action. For example, buyers can go through these markets to repair badly 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 necessary in emergency, can be passed without advertising or competitive tendering 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 the 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 urgent nature of this emergency.

The MAPA (or adapted procedure contract) is a contract whose amount before tax is between €60,000 and the formalized procedure 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 Mapas 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 in an amount between €60,000 and the following formal procedure 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

Certain contracts may be subject to an appropriate procedure even if their amount is higher than the thresholds of the formalized procedures. These are the following markets:

  • Markets of social services and other specific services. These include services related to one of the following areas:
    • Health, social or health care
    • Administrative, educational or cultural
    • Hotels or catering
    • 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).

FYI  

To know the full list of markets from social services and other specific serviceswhich may be the subject of a Mapa, refer to the list in the notice on public procurement contracts for social services and specific 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 appear in the Official journal of the French Republic as 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 the 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 of an amount equal to or greater than €432,000 HT
  • Public procurement of works 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 tender

Open tender

The call for tenders is open when a candidate submits his application (Dume: titleContent or forms DC1, DC2, DC4) and a offer (response to the need expressed by the public purchaser) at same time.

The applicant must submit his application within the following deadlines:

  • 35 days from the date of dispatch of thecontract notice in case of deposit by post.
    This period may be reduced to 15 days if the public purchaser has published a pre-information notice or a periodic indicative notice which has not been used as a call for competition notice.
  • 30 days from the date of dispatch of the contract notice if applications and tenders are submitted electronically
  • 15 days in case of emergency

FYI  

In practice, the 35-day period is no longer used because it concerns sending by post only. Applications and tenders must now be sent electronically.

Restricted tender

Restricted tendering is a public procurement procedure in which the consultation takes place in 2 distinct phases :

  • Application phase on: contracting authority publish a notice and any company may apply. Only companies that meet the required technical, financial and professional capabilities are pre-selected and eligible to submit a bid.
  • Offer phase : only companies selected in the first phase are invited to submit a full offer. They have access consultation documents (WFD) and can offer their solution and prices.

During the application phase, the applicant company shall submit its application (Dume: titleContent or forms DC1, DC2, DC4) within the following deadlines:

  • Where the public purchaser is a contracting authority : 30 days from the date of sending thecontract notice or the invitation to confirm interest. In urgent cases, the contracting authority may reduce the time limit for receipt of applications, but it must be at least 15 days.
  • Where the public purchaser is a procuring entity : 15 days from the date of dispatch of the contract notice or the invitation to confirm interest.

During the offer phase, the pre-selected applicant company must submit its tender within the following deadlines:

  • Where the public purchaser is a contracting authority : 30 days from the date of dispatchinvitation to tender. This period can be reduced to 10 days if the buyer publishes a pre-information noticewhich has not been used as a notice of call for competition.
    The contracting authority may reduce this minimum period to 25 days if tenders are or can be submitted electronically.
    In case of emergency, this period may be set at 10 days from the date of dispatch of theinvitation to tender.
  • Where the public purchaser is a procuring entity : it may fix the deadline for the receipt of tenders by mutual agreement with the selected candidates, provided that this date is the same for all. In the event of no agreement, it shall set a time limit which shall not be less than 10 days from the date of dispatch of the invitation to tender.

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 can pass its contracts according to 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 with new production or building processes)
  • A contract that includes design services
  • A contract which cannot be awarded without prior negotiation because of particular circumstances relating to its nature, complexity or legal and financial arrangement or because of the risks associated with it
  • Contract with technical specifications that cannot be precisely measured by the contracting authority
  • Following a tendering procedure where only irregular offers where unacceptable, the buyer may enter into a new contract without its initial terms of the contract being altered too much.

The time limit for submission of applications is 30 days from the date of dispatch of thecontract notice or the date on which the invitation to confirm interest was sent if the call for competition was the subject of a pre-information notice.

The time limit for submission of tendersis as follows:

  • 30 days from the date of sending of the invitation to tender and 25 days if sent electronically
  • 10 days in the event of an emergency (for example, when, following a storm, it is necessary to carry out works allowing the establishment of an industrial group)
  • 10 days if the buyer publishes a pre-information noticewhich fulfills certain conditions

The contracting authority shall negotiate with all tenderers their initial and subsequent offers. 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 the 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 submission 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 the call for competition was the subject of a pre-information notice.

As for the deadline for submission of tenders, it may be fixed by mutual agreement with the selected candidates, provided that this period is the same for all.

In the absence of an agreement, the procuring entity shall set a time limit which shall not be less than 10 days from the date of dispatch of the invitation to tender (which shall be addressed by the buyer to one or more candidates, whether selected or not via an application phase, to request them to submit a tender). submit a formal offer).

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 thecontract 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 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

Clarifications or additions may be requested from participants 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 buyer may provide premiums 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 into account any premium paid to him for his participation in the procedure.

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