The essentials in 30 seconds
- When it is published, half of public calls for tenders announce four weeks or less to respond (28 days at the median), and one in four announces three weeks or less (21 days).
- The closing date moves often: more than four notices in ten see it pushed back, by 8 days at the median when it moves. It is almost never brought forward.
- The core finding does not change: about 65% of public contracts are awarded without a call for tenders, from about 50% at school service centres to about 88% in the health network.
Every month, we read the SEAO open data (the public registry of Québec government contracts) to pull out what matters for an SME. October 2026 edition. This time the figure of the month is about a constraint every business runs into before it even opens the specifications: the time it has to respond.
The finding of the month: four weeks, and often less
For every public call for tenders published on SEAO between July 1, 2025 and June 30, 2026, we measured the number of calendar days between its publication date and its deadline for receiving bids. Cancelled notices are set aside. That makes 14,462 notices.
When the notice comes out, the announced deadline leaves:
- 28 days at the median: half of notices announce four weeks or less;
- 21 days or less for one notice in four;
- 19 days or less for one notice in ten.
These are calendar days, weekends and public holidays included. The working time actually available is shorter.
The closing date moves, almost always later
The announced date is not always the one that holds. More than four notices in ten see their closing date pushed back at least once, and when it moves, it is pushed back by 8 days at the median. A date brought forward is extremely rare.
Once extensions are counted, the final window is a little wider than the announced one: 31 days at the median, 25 days or less for one notice in four, 20 days or less for one notice in ten. Fewer than one notice in a hundred ends up leaving less than two weeks.
Extensions are not spread evenly. They affect about half of the health network's notices and close to half of construction works notices, against about one services notice in three.
What this means for you. Decide on the announced date, never on a hoped-for extension. Extensions are common, but you do not know which notice will get one, and they come along the way, once your decision is already made. With a typical window of four weeks, and three or less for one notice in four, make the first week count: read the documents, prepare your questions for the buyer, and line up any partners or subcontractors you need. And until the closing date has passed, go back to the notice: that is where you will see whether the date has changed. We explain changes to an ongoing call for tenders in our article on tender addenda.
From one buyer to the next, a few days apart
Depending on the buyer family, the median final window runs from 29 to 34 days. The health network leaves the most time (34 days at the median, 28 days or less for one notice in four). The gap worth knowing is elsewhere: at municipal bodies, one notice in four leaves 22 days or less, five days fewer than at provincial and other bodies (27 days).
| Buyer family | Notices | Median | One notice in four, at most |
|---|---|---|---|
| Municipal bodies | 6,976 | 30 days | 22 days |
| Provincial and other bodies | 4,823 | 31 days | 27 days |
| School service centres | 1,915 | 29 days | 23 days |
| Health and social services network | 748 | 34 days | 28 days |
Final window, extensions included, in calendar days.
By type of contract, on the other hand, the windows are almost identical: 31 days at the median for goods as for services, 30 days for construction works.
The finding holds from month to month. Publication month by publication month, the median stays between 29 and 31 days in ten months out of twelve. The two exceptions are July 2025 (35 days) and above all December 2025 (43 days).
Source: Adjudica analysis of SEAO open data, notices extracted on September 29, 2026. Public calls for tenders published from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026, cancelled notices excluded, counted per notice.
The core finding
Over the twelve months from July 2025 to June 2026, SEAO counts 56,978 contracts whose record was published during that period. Nearly 2 in 3 are awarded without a call for tenders: about 65%, in line with our previous editions.
Taken one by one, the twelve months of that period range from about 60% to about 74%. It is the twelve-month aggregate that is stable, not the month.
The share varies sharply by buyer family:
- health and social services network: about 88% of contracts awarded without a call for tenders;
- provincial and other bodies: about 68%;
- municipal bodies: about 61%;
- school service centres: about 50%, the lowest share of the four families.
Half of contracts are services (50%), close to a third are goods (31%), and under a fifth are construction works (about 19%). We spell out the mutual-agreement mechanic in our article on contracts by mutual agreement.
The latest complete month: what was published in September 2026 (provisional figures)
Among the contracts whose record was published in September 2026, the October 19, 2026 extraction counts 3,551. The share without a call for tenders looks very high there, around 84%, well above the consolidated share of 65%.
Why "provisional". This barometer files each contract in the month its SEAO record was published. The count for a recent month has not finished climbing, and that 84% describes the October 19, 2026 extraction: it is not an estimate of September's final share. That is why we base this barometer on twelve months that end in June 2026, never on the latest month alone.
The most active sectors
Among the contracts published during the consolidated period, the fields most present on SEAO, by number of contracts: buildings (about 12%), maintenance, repair and installation of goods and equipment and architecture and engineering services (about 9% each), professional and administrative support services (about 7%), then computer hardware and software and civil engineering works (about 6% each).
What to take away
A public call for tenders usually gives you four weeks to respond, often less, and one in four gives three weeks or less. The date moves in more than four cases in ten, almost always later, but when you decide, you do not know whether the notice you care about will be extended. So the decision to respond has to be made early.
Your move. Take the last three calls for tenders you hesitated over. For each one, write down its publication date, its deadline, and the day you decided whether to respond. If your decision often comes after the first week, you are usually left with three weeks or less to prepare your bid. Our guide to reading tender specifications helps you decide faster.
Methodology
The window to respond. For each public call for tenders notice (including regionalized notices and those reserved for small businesses), we count the calendar days, in Québec time, between its publication date on SEAO and its deadline for receiving bids. The announced window uses the deadline the notice carried when it was published; the final window uses the last published deadline, extensions included. Cancelled notices are set aside. The publication date and the last deadline are the ones shown on the notice's public page (checked on eight randomly drawn notices) ("Date de publication" and "Date limite de réception des offres"). A cell with fewer than 100 notices is not published. The notices were extracted on September 29, 2026; a few notices whose closing date fell after that date could still be extended, with no effect on the published values.
The core finding. We keep awarded contracts (with a supplier and an amount greater than zero), assigned to the analyzed period by the publication date of their SEAO record rather than by their award date, counted per procurement process (one contract = one OCID), on the corpus as of October 19, 2026. The consolidated shares cover the twelve months from July 2025 to June 2026; July to October 2026 are set aside because they have not finished filling in, and September, the latest complete month, is shown separately, as provisional. A period that has already been published can still fill in: our editions are therefore not comparable to the decimal.
The buyer type is identified from the name of the body, then grouped into four families; shares are always computed within a single family. No business and no public body is named.
Frequently asked questions
Sources
Data source
Dataset: “Système électronique d’appel d’offres (SEAO)”, published by the Secrétariat du Conseil du trésor (Québec Treasury Board Secretariat), released on Données Québec under the CC BY 4.0 licence.
Processing: data extracted, cleaned and analysed by Adjudica; the figures shown result from this processing and are not an official SEAO publication. See our data.
- SEAO public call for tenders notices in OCDS format, extracted on September 29, 2026, published from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026.
- SEAO contracts corpus in OCDS format, as of October 19, 2026. The consolidated values cover the twelve months from July 2025 to June 2026; the reading for September 2026 comes from that same extraction.
- Categorization by nature of goods or services according to the Québec public procurement nomenclature.
- Buyer type grouped by Adjudica from the name of the body.
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