5 Mistakes That Get a Bid Rejected (and How to Avoid Them)

Your bid was rejected. Not because your price was too high. Not because a competitor had a better methodology. Because a document was missing. Or because an attestation had expired before the bid opening date. Or because an addendum published on a Friday had changed the form, and you submitted the old one.

Compliance, in public procurement, isn't a detail. It's the filter. The public body checks each bid for compliance before it even looks at price or quality. If an essential requirement isn't met, your bid can be set aside, especially when the documents state that the omission is eliminatory. The technical term is "non-compliant bid," and the result is the same as if you had never bid at all, except you invested time and money for nothing.

The five mistakes that cause the most rejections are all avoidable.

1. Ignoring an addendum

This is the most devastating mistake because it's invisible. You read the tender documents, prepared your bid, checked everything. But in the meantime, the public body published an addendum that changes a technical criterion, alters the bid form, or pushes back the closing date. Your bid, based on the original documents, is non-compliant.

The classic trap: an addendum published in the final days before closing that introduces a new version of the bid form. You submit the old form. Rejected.

How to avoid it: check SEAO every day you work on a bid. Not once at the start, not once at the end, every day. And on submission day, one last check before you click "Submit." If you've ordered the documents, addenda published after your order are distributed to you automatically, but "distributed" doesn't mean "read."

2. Submitting after the deadline date and time

SEAO blocks submissions to the minute. Not "within the hour," not "by end of day," to the minute. If the notice says 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 15, your bid must be priced, transmitted and saved on SEAO's servers before 2:00 p.m. At 2:01 p.m., it's over.

The most frequent causes: a slow internet connection on submission day, a file too large that takes time to upload, a forgotten password, or, most treacherous of all, not having activated the STVE service beforehand and then discovering that a mandatory submission test is required before your first bid.

How to avoid it: SEAO's official recommendation is to submit at least one hour before the deadline. Our recommendation: 24 hours. That gives you time to fix a technical problem without panic. And if it's your very first electronic bid, activate the STVE service and pass the submission test days ahead, not the night before.

3. An expired or missing Attestation de Revenu Québec

Practically every public call for tenders in Québec requires a tax compliance certificate from Revenu Québec, the Attestation de Revenu Québec. It proves that your business is in good standing with the tax authorities: no unpaid tax debts, no late filings.

The catch: the attestation has a limited validity period. It's valid until the end of the third month following the month it was issued. Concretely, an attestation obtained on January 5 expires on April 30. If you obtained it a few months ago for another call for tenders, check the expiry date before assuming it's still valid. And if it's expired on the date required in the tender documents (often the bid opening date), your offer is rejected, even if you renewed it the next day.

How to avoid it: request a new attestation for each bid, even if you think the previous one is still valid, or turn on automatic renewal in Mon dossier Revenu Québec, which generates a new attestation before the previous one expires. The request takes a few minutes online (if your tax file is in good standing). Check the expiry date and compare it against the date required in the tender documents.

4. A missing document or an incomplete form

Every call for tenders defines a precise list of documents to include in your bid. This list varies from one tender to the next. Bid form, lobbying declaration, proof of insurance, references from similar contracts, key personnel CVs, integrity declaration, technical offer: the combination changes every time.

The mistake isn't always an outright omission. Sometimes it's a form filled out 95% of the way with one box left unchecked. Or a document signed by the wrong person (the operations director instead of the president). Or a CV that doesn't mention the projects required in the evaluation grid. Non-compliance is binary: compliant or non-compliant. There's no "almost compliant."

How to avoid it: before submitting, reread the "Instructions to tenderers" section of the tender documents one last time. Make a list of every required document, and check them off one by one in your final PDF. If the documents were changed by an addendum, make sure you're using the latest version. The checklist in our guide covers the most common points.

5. A missing or non-compliant bid security

For construction contracts and certain major service contracts, the tender documents require a bid security, a financial guarantee that ensures you'll honour your offer if you're selected. The amount required is often 10% of the value of your bid, though that percentage is a market practice and not a fixed legal obligation.

The requirements for bid securities depend on the applicable regulation and on the tender documents. A missing or non-compliant guarantee can lead to your bid being rejected, and certain omissions, such as a complete absence of bid security or a missing signature, are generally treated as eliminatory. When a correction is allowed, it must be made within very short timeframes. Always check what the compliance clause of your tender provides for.

How to avoid it: as soon as you decide to bid on a contract that requires a bid security, contact your financial institution or your surety broker. The issuance process can take several days. If you wait until the eve of the deadline, you're taking an unnecessary risk.

After a rejection: what SEAO teaches you

A rejection isn't the end of the story. SEAO has a "Non-selected bids" feature that lets the buyer tell you the reasons your bid wasn't retained, whether for non-compliance, a price gap, or an insufficient technical evaluation. The information appears in your Mon SEAO page, under the Specialist profile, where an alert banner flags when a message is available.

Systematically consult these reasons after every unsuccessful bid. If it's a compliance error, fix your internal process. If it's a price gap, adjust your estimate. The goal isn't to win every time, it's to never lose for the same reason twice.

Sources

LCOP, SEAO documentation (miniguides, terms of use), Autorité des marchés publics (AMP).