Québec public tenders: nearly one in three attracts a single bidder

Adjudica analysis, 2026-06-05, SEAO corpus 2021-2024, method by unique OCID.

When a public body launches a proper call for tenders in Québec, often only one company files a bid. Out of 88,243 tenders launched competitively between 2021 and 2024, 30.7% received a single bid. Nearly one in three. The notice is published, the market is open to potential tenderers, and yet, in nearly one case in three, a single company responds.

In this article, "competitive tender" means a contract launched through a competitive procedure, as opposed to a contract by mutual agreement, even if only one company ends up bidding.

TL;DR in 30 seconds

• 30.7% of competitive public tenders receive a single bid (2021-2024).
• It's stable: 29.8% in 2021, 32.1% in 2022, 31.1% in 2023, 29.9% in 2024.
• By type: goods 41%, services 35%, construction 18%.
• By buyer: Ministère des Transports 41% (nearly 6,400 tenders), Hydro-Québec 64%, several universities above 50%. The big cities are more competitive (Montréal 21%, Québec 20%).
• For an SME, these lightly contested markets are worth watching, but some are turf reserved for an incumbent supplier. The nuance makes all the difference.

Who this article is for For Québec SMEs that respond (or want to respond) to public tenders and are looking for where to focus their efforts. For leaders who want to see where competition is real, and where it isn't.

Contents

1. The finding: a single bidder, nearly one time in three
2. It's not mutual agreement, it's something else
3. Where competition is weakest: by contract type
4. The buyers where a single bidder is common
5. Why a single bidder shows up
6. What the AMP and the Auditor General say about it
7. What it changes for your SME
8. How to read these numbers (method)

1. The finding: a single bidder, nearly one time in three

Between January 2021 and December 2024, Québec's public and parapublic buyers ran 88,243 competitive tenders registered on SEAO with a known result. In 27,124 cases, or 30.7%, a single company filed a bid.

The figure doesn't move from one year to the next: 29.8% in 2021, 32.1% in 2022, 31.1% in 2023, 29.9% in 2024. So this isn't a passing fluke. It's a stable feature of Québec's public procurement.

A call for tenders exists to compare several compliant bids, according to the rules set out in the tender documents: price, quality, or a combination of both depending on the type of contract. When a single company responds, that comparison doesn't happen. The notice was published and the market opened to potential tenderers, but the competition observed when bids are filed comes down to a single offer.

2. It's not mutual agreement, it's something else

Two phenomena need to be told apart.

The first is mutual agreement: the body awards a contract directly, without a call for tenders. We documented it in our mutual agreement analysis, and it concerns roughly 6 public contracts in 10 in Québec. Competition is set aside upstream, by decision.

The second, the subject of this article, is more discreet. Here, the body did launch an open call for tenders. It accepted competitive bidding. And it's the market that didn't respond: a single company bid.

To make sure we're measuring this second phenomenon properly, we isolated only the competitive tenders. On the direct-award side, virtually all by definition have only one "bidder", the chosen company. On the competitive tenders side, the rate drops to 30.7%. The gap confirms that we're measuring the markets where competition fails to materialize when bids are filed, and not the direct awards.

3. Where competition is weakest: by contract type

The single-bidder rate varies sharply depending on what's being bought.

Buying goods is the most affected: more than two tenders in five for equipment bring back only one offer. Services follow, at a little more than one in three. Construction stays clearly competitive: fewer than one tender in five attracts a single bidder.

Several factors can explain these gaps: product specialization, a limited number of distributors in a region, compatibility requirements with existing equipment, response timelines, or the structure of the supplier market. In construction, the pool of contractors able to respond to a given project site is often wider, but this varies by region and specialty. The percentages describe a result; on their own, they don't prove the cause.

4. The buyers where a single bidder is common

Before the table, a necessary caution. These rates don't allow a cause to be pinned on a body. They prove neither favouritism, nor collusion, nor irregularity. They only indicate the share of competitive tenders for which a single bid was declared in the data analyzed. The possible causes are many: specialization of the need, region, timelines, technical requirements, supplier-market structure.

That said, here are the buyers where the phenomenon is most common over 2021-2024 (at least 200 competitive tenders).

In number of tenders, the Ministère des Transports is by far the largest buyer in our corpus, with nearly 6,400 competitive tenders. Two in five received only one bid. At that scale, the phenomenon is recurring and deserves to be tracked, without that rate alone establishing its cause.

Conversely, the big cities post lower rates: Montréal 21%, Québec 20%, Laval 22%. Their contracts, often construction and standardized goods, attract more bidders.

A methodological note, because it matters. A single body often appears on SEAO under several names and identifiers: the Ministère des Transports, for example, is split across directorates and entities such as the CGER. We grouped these entities under their real body before calculating. Note as well that Hydro-Québec falls under a distinct contracting regime, as a government enterprise (section 7 of the LCOP), while still publishing its notices on SEAO.

5. Why a single bidder shows up

A tender with a single bidder is not, in itself, an irregularity. The law even provides for the case of a single compliant bid. Several perfectly legitimate reasons explain it:

• The need is highly specialized and few companies can meet it.
• The market is in a remote region, far from suppliers.
• Response timelines are short and discourage occasional tenderers.
• Technical, compatibility or continuity requirements with existing equipment shrink the pool of suppliers.

But at 31% on average, the phenomenon goes beyond individual cases. A tender that receives only one offer exerts less visible competitive pressure than one that receives several. The effect on the price paid, though, can't be deduced from the number of bids alone: it's assessed contract by contract, which our data doesn't allow us to do. We present a finding, not a judgment on any body.

6. What the AMP and the Auditor General say about it

The watchdogs of public procurement reach a neighbouring finding, by another route.

In its 2024-2025 Annual Activity Report, the Autorité des marchés publics (AMP) observes a rise in contracts by mutual agreement, among both public and municipal bodies, and warns that this predominance gradually diminishes competition in public procurement. The AMP analyzed more than 1,000 contracts by mutual agreement and found roughly 9% of non-compliant cases.

For its part, the Auditor General of Québec, in its November 2024 volume devoted to grouped government purchasing, points to sometimes weak participation and a use of mutual agreement tied to insufficient planning of needs. Its message aligns with ours: before awarding by mutual agreement or settling for a single offer, you have to ask why competition isn't coming.

Our analysis completes this picture. The AMP and the Auditor General look mainly upstream: the planning of needs and the drafting of specifications. Our numbers show the result, downstream. Even when the call for tenders is launched properly, competition fails to materialize in nearly one case in three.

7. What it changes for your SME

Let's be clear: these numbers don't mean "charge at the single-bidder markets". That would be bad advice.

A market that has attracted only one offer for years is often a locked market. The need is written around an incumbent supplier, the requirements (prior experience with the body, high performance bond, precise references) are calibrated for that supplier, and a new SME has little chance of winning, even alone at bid filing. Yet preparing a public bid is expensive in time and compliance. Rushing into a contract that looks easy but is in fact reserved means money lost.

The right read is finer. Where competition is thin, two situations coexist: the locked market, to avoid, and the simply overlooked market, where a capable SME can break through. Here's how to tell them apart.

1. Look at the history. On SEAO, check who won the last three to five similar contracts. Always the same company, at prices that keep climbing? Probably reserved turf. Varied winners, or a recent need? A contract that may be open to competition. Our guide on analyzing the competition before bidding details the method.
2. Start from your real advantage. Target the markets where you have a concrete edge (proximity, specialty, technical capacity) and where the history shows two to four bidders, rather than zero or one ever since.
3. Test the specifications before investing. Use the pre-bid questions to check whether a requirement is needlessly restrictive. A closed answer saves you from wasting hours.
4. Start with the municipal. The big cities are more competitive, but often more accessible for building a first track record of public contracts, before aiming at departmental markets.
5. Nail compliance. Alone or not, a non-compliant bid is rejected, and the body is never obliged to award. Administrative compliance stays decisive.

Immediate action Choose a category where you're genuinely good. On SEAO, spot three open tenders that fit it, then examine the history of similar contracts: how many bidders, which winners, how prices changed. You'll know which ones are worth a bid, and which are reserved turf to avoid.

8. How to read these numbers (method)

A few clarifications, because rigour is what gives an analysis its value.

First, we count by contract, not by line. SEAO publishes its data in JSON, in a format inspired by the Open Contracting Data Standard, via Données Québec. A single tender generates several lines there (notice, addenda, opening, award). We reduce each contract to its unique identifier, the OCID, before calculating.

Then, we keep only the competitive tenders, setting aside the direct awards (mutual agreement), which by nature have only one supplier. And we consolidate the buyers by body before any ranking.

Three limits to keep in mind. First, a selection bias: tenders that receive no bid at all don't enter this calculation (they're often re-run afterward by mutual agreement). The 30.7% therefore applies to tenders that received at least one offer. Next, the number of bidders is a self-declared field on SEAO, which doesn't always distinguish consortiums or withdrawn bids. Finally, our numbers measure observed competition, not the price paid or the quality of execution. The figures were cross-checked independently against the raw feed, which gives the same order of magnitude.

Article updated on July 22, 2026. Two methodology adjustments changed some figures: de-duplication of SEAO corpus exports (which lowers some totals) and the reclassification of mandated purchases as tenders rather than sole-source contracts. The figure-by-figure detail is in our methodology note.

Going further

• Public procurement in Québec: 6 contracts in 10 are awarded without a call for tenders
• Analyzing the competition before bidding
• How to bid on a public tender in Québec
• Public procurement: 1% of winning suppliers take 28% of contracts on SEAO

Sources

• SEAO corpus in open format (OCDS standard), contracts 2021-2024 (the open format begins in March 2021).
• Adjudica analysis: 88,243 competitive tenders counted by unique OCID; single-bidder rate calculated on the number of bidders declared on SEAO.
• Autorité des marchés publics, 2024-2025 Annual Activity Report.
• Auditor General of Québec, November 2024 volume, chapter on grouped government purchasing.
• Act respecting contracting by public bodies (LCOP, CQLR, c. C-65.1).

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

Methodological appendix. Scope: contracts registered on SEAO between 2021 and 2024 (the open format begins in 2021), launched through a competitive procedure, with a declared number of bidders. Counting unit: unique OCID. Consolidation of buyers by body (name normalization, grouping of the entities of a single department). Single-bidder rate: share of contracts whose declared number of bidders equals 1. Limits: selection bias (contracts with no bid at all are excluded), self-declared field, no measurement of the price paid. Year-over-year stability and independent cross-checking against the raw feed carried out before publication.