Bidding Without Experience: Yes, Your SME Can Do It

It's the question we hear most often: "We've never held a public contract, can we still bid?" Yes. What changes from there is which contract you go after.

There's no "licence to bid"

SEAO is open to any business registered in Québec, and, for contracts covered by trade agreements (interprovincial or international), to businesses from other provinces, territories or countries. No minimum size, no required revenue, no prior certification to sign up. If you have a Québec enterprise number (NEQ), you can create an account, browse the calls for tenders and submit a bid.

The confusion comes from the fact that each call for tenders sets its own eligibility criteria. SEAO isn't what blocks you: it's the specific requirements of the contract.

The criteria that can block you (and the ones that don't)

Every call for tenders publishes its criteria in the documents. Here are the most common ones and what they really mean for an SME with no track record:

"Provide 3 references for similar contracts in the last 5 years." This is the criterion that shuts out newcomers. If you have no history of public contracts, you don't make the cut. But watch closely: "similar contracts" often includes private-sector contracts. Having maintained a private company's offices for 3 years can count as a reference for a municipal maintenance contract.

"Hold an RBQ licence." For construction contracts, it's a legal requirement. No way around it. For service contracts (cleaning, security, IT, consulting), no RBQ licence is required in principle. Watch out, though: a contract labelled "services" can include construction work that does require a licence. Go by the actual nature of the work being asked for, not just the contract's title.

"Attestation de Revenu Québec." Mandatory for virtually every public contract. But it's not an experience criterion, it's proof that your business is in good standing with the tax authorities. Any compliant business can get it in a few minutes on the Revenu Québec website.

"$2M in civil liability insurance." Common on service contracts. If you don't have it, call your insurance broker: it's often more affordable than SMEs imagine. It's not an experience criterion either.

Where to start when you have no track record

Not all public contracts have the same barrier to entry. Here are the contract types most accessible to an SME just getting started:

Municipal service contracts below the thresholds. Small municipalities regularly publish contracts for maintenance, snow removal, waste collection and professional services. The amounts are smaller, experience requirements are often absent or reduced, and geographic proximity works in your favour.

Contracts using the "lowest compliant price" method. In this award method, the only criterion is price (among compliant bids). No evaluation of your experience, no quality-price scoring grid. If your bid is complete and your price is the lowest, you win, even if it's your first contract.

Calls for tenders with light eligibility criteria. Read the documents before ordering. If the call asks for "relevant experience" without specifying "3 contracts in the last 5 years", your private-sector experience may be enough.

The Supplier Directory, an underrated shortcut. When you register on SEAO, you can choose to appear in the Supplier Directory (Répertoire des fournisseurs). Buyers search it for businesses to invite on contracts by mutual agreement and invitation-only calls for tenders. And here's the detail nobody mentions: the Directory specifically flags businesses that have never won a public contract, so that bodies consider them. It's free, it takes 10 minutes, and it's the only way to get on buyers' radar without bidding.

What the government strategy plans for SMEs

The Québec government has acknowledged that past-experience requirements create a barrier for SMEs. The 2022-2026 Government Strategy for Public Procurement explicitly aimed to make public procurement more accessible to small businesses, notably through measures such as reserving contracts for Québec SMEs and preferential margins based on Québec value added.

The 2026-2030 strategy, unveiled on June 23, 2026, carries this forward: it places SMEs at the heart of its priorities, raises the Québec-purchasing target (from 50% to 60% by 2030) and keeps the preferential margins and contracts reserved for small businesses. The political message is clear: the government wants more SMEs in public procurement, not fewer. (Whether the concrete measures will follow the good intentions remains to be seen. We'll keep you posted.)

Your next step

Don't let the lack of a track record put you off. Register on SEAO (free), sign up for the Supplier Directory, and read the documents of 2-3 calls for tenders in your sector, without bidding. You'll quickly see which criteria keep coming up, which contracts are within your reach, and which ones require you to build your track record first. Think of it as scouting the terrain before you commit. And when a notice looks within your reach, the seven steps to answering a call for tenders map out the filing.

Sources

Système électronique d'appel d'offres (SEAO), seao.gouv.qc.ca: registration and Supplier Directory. Registraire des entreprises du Québec (NEQ). Régie du bâtiment du Québec (RBQ). Revenu Québec (attestation). Act respecting contracting by public bodies (LCOP, CQLR, c. C-65.1). Act respecting contracting by municipal bodies (LCOM, CQLR, c. C-65.01), s. 30, 80 and 9.