In Québec, 43% of municipal contracts of $25,000 and up are awarded by mutual agreement

Of more than 136,000 municipal contracts of $25,000 and up recorded on SEAO and awarded between 2011 and 2025, 43% were awarded by mutual agreement, according to the method declared by municipal bodies. These are mostly the small contracts. The big ones almost always go through a call for tenders: on their own, they concentrate three quarters of the money. That leaves the question of who lands this market of roughly $72 billion.

TL;DR in 30 seconds

• 43% of municipal contracts of $25,000 and up are awarded by mutual agreement (by count), but only about 15% of the dollars.
• The public call for tenders is 38% of contracts and nearly three quarters (75%) of the dollars: size drives the method, because the open procedure applies, in principle, from $139,000.
• By value, once grouped contracts are de-duplicated, the recorded market weighs about $72 billion, concentrated in construction, civil engineering and environmental services.
• A high rate of mutual agreement is not an irregularity: it's a method the law provides for below the thresholds. But an SME that waits only for tender notices sees only part of the market.

Who this article is for For Québec SMEs that want municipal contracts and are wondering where the market really plays out: in the public notices, or before them.

Contents

1. What this analysis measures
2. Four in ten contracts by mutual agreement
3. Why about $72 billion, and not $78
4. Where the money goes
5. The main contract winners
6. What it changes for your SME
7. How we counted

For most people, a public contract means a call for tenders: a posted notice, businesses that bid, and often the lowest bidder wins. Québec's municipal data show a wider market. A significant share of contracts is awarded directly, to a supplier chosen by the municipality, with no open competition. The law allows this in defined cases, and it's common.

Within SEAO's open data, we isolated the contracts awarded by municipal buyers: cities, regional county municipalities, intermunicipal boards, agglomerations. In total, 1,180 municipal bodies and more than 136,000 contracts of $25,000 and up, excluding transit agencies. Once the duplicate declarations that the system creates are removed, this market represents about $72 billion.

1. What this analysis measures

Since April 1, 2011, every municipality in Québec has published on SEAO its contracts involving an expenditure of $25,000 and up, whatever the award method. This obligation, born of the 2010 reforms, is today set out in section 99 of the Act respecting contracting by municipal bodies, in force on April 1, 2026. It's what makes the analysis possible. Below $25,000, contract-by-contract publication is not required: those small contracts don't appear here. They form another market, far larger by count, that we treat separately.

Two points of method. First, the municipal coverage of the corpus is effective from 2011 and most complete from 2021 on; earlier years are under-represented, so the total is a floor. Second, the award method is the one declared by the municipality on SEAO; we take it as is, without judging its regularity.

2. Four in ten contracts by mutual agreement

By count, mutual agreement dominates: 43% of contracts are awarded directly. Next come the public call for tenders (38%), the invitation-only call for tenders (14%) and grouped or mandated purchases (5%). In dollars, the picture flips completely.

The public call for tenders weighs only 38% of contracts, but nearly three quarters of the money (75%). Mutual agreement, conversely, represents 43% of contracts but only 15% of the dollars: contracts that are on average much smaller, a repair, a specialized service, a single supplier. The invitation-only call for tenders accounts for 14% of contracts and barely 1.5% of the dollars, the smallest average size of the lot. (The dollar shares are rounded.)

This distribution isn't a matter of habit, it's the law. The Act respecting contracting by municipal bodies requires an open procedure (the public call for tenders) from $139,000. Between $25,000 and $138,999, the written invitation procedure is the default regime, unless the municipality's contract management by-law authorizes mutual agreement. Below $25,000, mutual agreement is permitted. The size of the contract drives the method: small contract done directly, big contract through a call for tenders. We break down every tier in our article on the public tender thresholds.

The contract by mutual agreement remains an award method provided for by law, notably below the thresholds, for a single supplier, or in an emergency. What these numbers show an SME is that a business that waits only for tender notices sees only part of the market. We explore this method in detail in our analysis of contracts by mutual agreement in Québec.

3. Why about $72 billion, and not $78

The gross total displayed by SEAO reaches $78 billion. That figure overstates the market. Contracts awarded following a grouped purchase (when several municipalities join forces to buy together, for example a group insurance policy or fuel) are declared by each participant, each recording the total value of the framework contract. The same contract therefore ends up counted dozens of times.

One case makes it clear: a single grouped-insurance framework contract appears dozens of times in the data, once per municipality that joins it. By keeping only one occurrence of contracts re-declared identically by several municipalities (same supplier, same amount), about six billion is removed from the gross total: the market goes from $78 to about $72 billion. That cleaned figure is the one we use. Most quick reads of SEAO don't do this housekeeping.

4. Where the money goes

The spending is geographically concentrated. Montréal is clearly out in front with about $19.9 billion, roughly a quarter of the market. Then come Laval ($5.9 billion), Québec City ($5.4 billion), Gatineau ($2.2 billion), Longueuil ($1.8 billion) and Sherbrooke ($1.5 billion).

By category, two lines dominate: civil engineering works ($20.9 billion) and buildings ($13.4 billion). The municipal world is first and foremost construction and infrastructure. Then come public utilities ($5.7 billion), maintenance and rehabilitation ($3.0 billion), and architecture and engineering ($2.7 billion).

5. The main contract winners

Once grouped contracts are reduced to a single occurrence and business names normalized, the ranking by value holds no surprise: it's the large construction and civil engineering firms that lead. Pomerleau ($1,043 million), Les Entreprises Michaudville ($928 million) and Eurovia Québec ($851 million) are out front. One insurer, Beneva, slots in around $687 million, but that sum mostly reflects a single grouped-insurance framework contract, not a multitude of mandates. Then come Construction Deric ($610 million), Loiselle ($578 million), Les Excavations Lafontaine ($565 million), Roxboro Excavation ($545 million), the environmental-services firm GFL Environmental ($501 million), Charles-Auguste Fortier ($479 million), Sintra ($497 million) and Sanexen ($494 million). (Businesses are identified by their normalized name; mergers, subsidiaries and spelling variants can affect the rankings.)

The concentration is pronounced: about 1% of suppliers receive a little more than half the value (54%). A large number of small businesses share a minority of the amounts, while a handful of players concentrate the bulk of it.

6. What it changes for your SME

This market of $25,000 and up is documented on SEAO: the tender notices, but also the list of contracts already awarded, including those by mutual agreement. So only part of it is the subject of a notice before the award (some services or documents may carry fees). Watching the notices remains the right starting point. Three findings should adjust your strategy.

First, don't stake everything on the call for tenders. With 43% of contracts awarded by mutual agreement, a share of municipal work is not the subject of a public tender notice before it's awarded. For those contracts, the challenge is to be visible to and recognized by the procurement departments before the need arises. That visibility runs through the authorized channels: registering on municipalities' supplier lists, qualification processes, information sessions. It does not run through informal approaches to decision-makers, which are governed by ethics and lobbying rules.

Second, calibrate to the amount. Big contracts go through the open procedure and are won on a solid file. The smaller ones play out directly or by invitation, where proximity and responsiveness count more than administrative heft. Note: a municipality is not allowed to split a foreseeable need into several small contracts to stay under the thresholds. Targeting small mandates, yes; asking a buyer to carve up a mandate, no.

Finally, look at your category, not the average. Civil engineering and buildings run mostly on calls for tenders; other segments, much more directly. The right question isn't "how does the market behave", but "how does my target city award, in my sector".

7. How we counted

Within SEAO's open data, we kept the contracts awarded by municipal buyers (cities, municipalities, MRCs, intermunicipal boards, agglomerations, municipal housing offices), identified by the buyer's name. The contracts of transit companies and authorities (about $12 billion) are counted separately. Buyers of the same city split across several departments were regrouped under the city. The amounts are the declared contract or award values. The extraction covers contracts awarded from 2011 to 2025.

An important point of method: since contracts awarded following a grouped purchase are declared at full value by each participating municipality, we de-duplicated them by keeping only one occurrence per framework contract (same supplier, same amount). Without this cleanup, the gross total comes to $78 billion and the supplier ranking is dominated by insurers and fuel suppliers. After cleanup, the market represents nearly $72 billion and the ranking reflects the reality of the worksites.

Since coverage is most complete from 2021 on, earlier totals are underestimated and the whole should be read as a floor. We do not measure contracts under $25,000, which are not published contract by contract on SEAO, nor the regularity of the awards: a high rate of mutual agreement is not an irregularity, it's a method the law permits in defined cases.

Québec's municipal market is not a single window of calls for tenders. Nearly half the contracts are decided without open competition, and telling which ones changes how you bid.

Sources

• Adjudica analysis: municipal contracts of $25,000 and up, excluding transit agencies, with duplicate declarations from grouped contracts removed, 2011 to 2025.
• Act respecting contracting by municipal bodies, CQLR c. C-65.01 (in force April 1, 2026), ss. 27, 29, 30, 33, 37 and 99.

Going further

Find all of Adjudica's public procurement analyses and data.