How to Respond to a French Construction Tender (DCE)
What the tender file (DCE) contains, the 2026 thresholds and deadlines for French public works contracts, and the method for not being disqualified on form before price is even reviewed.
- The DCE bundles the règlement de consultation (RC), the acte d'engagement (AE), the CCAP, the CCTP, and the pricing documents (BPU, DQE, or DPGF depending on the contract).
- Above €5,404,000 excl. VAT (works contracts, 2026 threshold), the procedure is formalized: open or restricted tender, with minimum deadlines set by the Code de la commande publique.
- Below that threshold, the buyer most often uses an adapted procedure (MAPA), setting its own deadlines and terms.
The three procedures, compared
| Procedure | Threshold (works) | Minimum deadline | Publicity | Candidacy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adapted procedure (MAPA) | Below €5,404,000 excl. VAT (works) | Set freely by the buyer, proportionate to complexity | Adapted publicity: buyer profile, trade press. No mandatory BOAMP/OJEU | Any company that answers the publicity, or direct consultation below €40,000 excl. VAT |
| Open tender (appel d'offres ouvert) | From €5,404,000 excl. VAT (works) | 35 days from notice dispatch (30 days if offers are fully electronic, down to 15 days with a prior information notice) | BOAMP and OJEU mandatory | Every company files candidacy and offer together |
| Restricted tender (appel d'offres restreint) | From €5,404,000 excl. VAT (works) | 30 days for candidacies, then a buyer-set deadline for the offer | BOAMP and OJEU mandatory | Only shortlisted companies, after candidacy review, are invited to submit an offer |
Source: Code de la commande publique, article L2124-2; article L2123-1 (adapted procedure); 2026 and 2027 thresholds from notice NOR ECOM2600976V of January 13, 2026.
What is a French construction tender?
Strictly speaking, under the Code de la commande publique, an "appel d'offres" is a public procurement procedure, open to competition, in which the buyer selects the most economically advantageous offer without negotiating with candidates. In everyday industry usage, "appel d'offres BTP" more broadly covers any competitive process, public or private, built around a consultation file.
The two don't follow the same rules. A private client (a developer, an industrial owner, a general contractor consulting its subcontractors) runs its own consultation however it chooses: it sets its own deadlines, criteria, and submission format in its own règlement de consultation, with no statutory threshold or procedure. A public buyer (the State, a local authority, a social housing body, a public establishment) is bound by the Code de la commande publique: thresholds, minimum deadlines, and exclusion grounds apply as a matter of law. The sections below on thresholds, deadlines, and exclusion grounds are specific to French public works contracts; the structure of the DCE and the response method apply to both.
What does the DCE contain?
The dossier de consultation des entreprises (DCE) is the set of documents the buyer gives candidates so they can understand the need and prepare an offer. Its exact makeup varies by contract, but five documents appear in almost every DCE.
- The règlement de consultation (RC): the rules of the consultation itself, documents to submit, selection criteria, submission format, deadline date and time.
- The acte d'engagement (AE): the document by which the candidate commits to its price and schedule; it becomes the contractual document once the contract is awarded.
- The CCAP (cahier des clauses administratives particulières): the rules for executing the contract, site deadlines, penalties, payment, subcontracting.
- The CCTP (cahier des clauses techniques particulières): the technical description of the need, expected performance, materials, applicable standards.
- The pricing documents: the BPU (bordereau des prix unitaires) for a call-off contract, the DQE (détail quantitatif estimatif) to estimate a quantity, or the DPGF (décomposition du prix global et forfaitaire) for a lump-sum contract.
Drawings, a provisional schedule, and, for public contracts, the DUME (European single procurement document) or the DC1/DC2 forms, used to present the candidacy itself as distinct from the offer, are usually added as well.
Which procedures and thresholds apply in 2026?
For a public works contract, the 2026 and 2027 European threshold is set at €5,404,000 excl. VAT, slightly down from €5,538,000 excl. VAT in 2024 and 2025. Below it, the buyer can use an adapted procedure (MAPA); below €40,000 excl. VAT, it isn't even required to run formal publicity or competition, though consulting several companies remains good practice.
Source: Notice NOR ECOM2600976V of January 13, 2026, Annex 2 of the Code de la commande publique; Delegated Regulations (EU) 2025/2150, 2025/2151, and 2025/2152.
Above the threshold, the procedure becomes formalized: an open tender (candidacy and offer filed together and reviewed together) or a restricted tender (candidates shortlisted first, then only the selected ones are invited to submit an offer). Both require publicity in the BOAMP and, above the European threshold, in the OJEU.
Source: Code de la commande publique, articles R2161-2 to R2161-11.
What deadlines do you need to meet?
In an open tender, the minimum deadline for receiving offers is 35 days from when the notice is sent, reduced to 30 days if the buyer accepts fully electronic offer submission, and to 15 days if a prior information notice was published between 35 days and 12 months before the tender notice. In a restricted tender, the minimum deadline for receiving candidacies is 30 days; the deadline for the offer itself is then set by the buyer once candidates are shortlisted.
Source: Code de la commande publique, articles R2143-1 and R2143-2.
In an adapted procedure, no minimum deadline is set by law: the buyer simply has to leave a reasonable amount of time, proportionate to the complexity of the contract and to how long preparing a serious offer takes. The RC remains the only reference for the exact date and time.
Mirage reads an incoming DCE and extracts requirements, deadlines, and disqualifiers, linked back to the clause they came from. Send a real tender file and let's talk about the result directly.
Book a callHow does the buyer choose the winning offer?
Two separate reviews, often confused, happen one after the other. The buyer first checks the candidacy: does the company have the required technical, professional and financial capacity, and is it clear of the exclusion grounds set by law. Only once the candidacy is deemed admissible does the buyer review the offer itself, price and technical merit.
Exclusion grounds
Some grounds are automatic: a final criminal conviction for certain offenses, a serious failure to meet tax or social security obligations, liquidation without authorization to keep trading. Others are left to the buyer's discretion: a serious prior failure to perform, an attempt to unduly influence the procedure, anti-competitive collusion, or a conflict of interest.
Source: Code de la commande publique, articles L2141-1 to L2141-14.
Award criteria
The contract goes to the most economically advantageous offer, assessed against several objective, precise criteria linked to the subject of the contract: price, technical merit, delivery time, environmental performance. At least one of these criteria must account for the offer's environmental characteristics. The exact weighting of each criterion is set by the RC and varies from one contract to the next.
How do you respond effectively?
- Read the entire DCE before pricing: the RC for the rules of the game, the CCAP and CCTP for requirements and constraints, the drawings for quantities. A disqualifying requirement buried in the CCAP, not just in the RC, disqualifies a bid just the same.
- Cross-check written specifications against drawings. A mismatch between the CCTP and the drawings isn't something you guess your way through at pricing time: it's something you flag to the buyer during the question period.
- Assemble the candidacy alongside pricing, not after: DUME or DC1/DC2, certificates, references for similar contracts, financial capacity.
- Price on the BPU, DQE, or DPGF exactly in the structure requested, line by line, without rewording or merging items.
- Write the technical memo answering the RC's criteria explicitly, in the order they're weighted, rather than as a general company presentation.
- Submit before the deadline date and time, with real margin: an overloaded dematerialized platform right before the deadline remains the most avoidable and most common reason for rejection.
What mistakes get a bid disqualified?
Most disqualified offers aren't rejected on price: they're never reviewed on substance at all. The most common reasons are all matters of form, not competitiveness.
- Submission filed after the deadline date or time, even by a few minutes
- A DUME or DC1/DC2 document missing or unsigned
- The acte d'engagement unsigned, or signed by someone without authority to bind the company
- The wrong submission format (paper filed when dematerialized submission is required, or the reverse)
- An insurance or financial capacity certificate missing or expired
- An undeclared subcontractor, when the RC requires disclosure at offer stage
- Pricing that doesn't follow the exact structure of the BPU, DQE, or DPGF
An appel d'offres (open or restricted) is a formalized procedure, mandatory above the European works threshold (€5,404,000 excl. VAT in 2026 and 2027), with publicity rules and minimum deadlines set by the Code de la commande publique. Below that threshold, the buyer can run an adapted procedure (MAPA), setting its own publicity, deadline and negotiation terms within the general principles of public procurement.
The RC sets the rules of the consultation itself: documents to submit, selection criteria, submission format, deadline. The CCAP sets the rules for executing the contract once awarded: site deadlines, penalties, payment terms, subcontracting. The first governs how you bid, the second how the contract runs once you win it.
There's no automatic general rule: the order of priority between contract documents is normally set by the CCAP or the acte d'engagement itself. Absent an explicit priority clause, a mismatch between written specifications and drawings should be raised with the buyer during the question period, not resolved unilaterally by the bidder.
Yes, and it's the only mechanism provided to clear up an ambiguity or inconsistency in the DCE before offers are due. The RC sets the deadline for written questions, normally several days before the offer submission deadline so the buyer has time to answer every candidate.
A candidacy or offer received after the deadline is rejected without its content being reviewed. On dematerialized platforms, the actual timestamp of submission governs, not when you started sending it: never aim for the last few minutes, since an overloaded platform can delay the final timestamp.
Liquidation is an automatic exclusion ground, unless the company is authorized to continue trading for the period the judgment specifies. Receivership does not automatically exclude a company if it can show it is authorized to keep operating for the expected duration of the contract.
The statutory minimum (30 to 35 days in a formalized procedure) is a floor, not a comfortable average once pricing, the technical memo and administrative documents are accounted for. Most of the available time goes into working through the DCE and the quantity takeoff rather than writing itself, which is why speeding up that first read changes how much time is actually left to price the job.
Texts and pages consulted
Verified as of September 15, 2026. Scope: French public works contracts. Private contracts, defense or security contracts, and rules specific to other countries (see our dedicated Moroccan tender page) may carry different thresholds, deadlines, or documents not covered here.
- Code de la commande publique, article L2124-2: definition of the appel d'offres
- Code de la commande publique, article L2123-1: adapted procedure
- Code de la commande publique, articles R2161-2 to R2161-11: open and restricted tenders
- Code de la commande publique, articles R2143-1 and R2143-2: deadlines for receiving candidacies
- Code de la commande publique, articles L2141-1 to L2141-14: exclusion grounds
- Code de la commande publique, article L2152-7: award criteria
- Notice NOR ECOM2600976V of January 13, 2026, Annex 2 of the Code de la commande publique: 2026 and 2027 European thresholds
- French Ministry of the Economy (economie.gouv.fr): "Commande publique, nouveaux seuils européens applicables au 1er janvier 2026"
Disclaimer: this guide presents general French law for educational purposes. It does not replace a review of a specific DCE, contract, or ongoing procedure by a public procurement professional.
Mirage extracts requirements, deadlines, and disqualifiers from an incoming construction tender, linked back to the clause they came from, built for French public tenders and general construction bids alike.