Council of State upholds higher no-bid public contract limits

In a 19 October 2026 ruling by the 7th and 2nd chambers sitting together (No. 513188), the Conseil d'État rejected the request brought by the syndicat de la presse quotidienne régionale, the alliance de la presse d'information générale, the GIE Publication de marchés and the groupe MoniteurLegifrance against two 29 December 2025 decreesLegifrance, along with their €6,000 costs claim.

The first decree, No. 2025-1383 on simplifying public-procurement law, provides in its Article 1 that the exemption thresholds for prior advertising and competition for the contracts covered by Article R. 2122-8 of the code de la commande publique may be amended by simple decreeLegifrance. The second, No. 2025-1386, used that route to raise the estimated-need valueLegifrance below which a contract may be awarded without prior advertising or competition from €40,000 to €60,000 excluding tax for supply and service contractsLegifranceLegifrance, and from €40,000 to €100,000 excluding tax for works contractsLegifrance.

The procedural challenges all failed. Allowing thresholds to be set by simple decree creates or amends no norm applicable to local authorities, so the Government owed no consultation of the Conseil national d'évaluation des normes. The public consultation on the draft ran from 28 November to 13 December 2025, meeting the fifteen-day minimum for open internet consultations. And since the parent provision, Article R. 2122-8, was itself made by decree in Conseil d'État while leaving threshold figures to a simple decree, the new thresholds required no prior Conseil d'État opinion and involved no unlawful subdelegation.

On substance, the court held the arrangement compatible with Article L. 2122-1Legifrance, which lets buyers skip advertising and competition in cases set by Conseil d'État decree where procedure would be useless, impossible or manifestly contrary to the buyer's interests or a general-interest groundLegifrance. Works contracts under €100,000 had already been temporarily exempt since 8 December 2020, and systematically requiring an adapted procedure below €100,000 for works or €60,000 for supplies and services was deemed unnecessary and manifestly contrary to the general interest of easing small and medium-sized enterprises' access to public contracts. Raising the thresholds removes rather than creates a norm for contracting local authorities, so no consultation defect arose on that front either.

The fundamental principles survive the exemption. Buyers awarding contracts without advertising or competition under Article R. 2122-8 must still honour equality, free access and transparency in a manner they set under judicial reviewLegifrance, in particular by choosing a relevant offer, making good use of public money and not systematically contracting with the same operator where several offers could meet the needLegifrance. The raised thresholds therefore do not in themselves breach those principlesLegifrance or the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

The legal basis is Conseil d'État, 7th and 2nd chambers sitting together, 19 October 2026, No. 513188, rejecting annulment of Décrets Nos. 2025-1383 and 2025-1386 of 29 December 2025Legifrance, applying Articles L. 2122-1, L. 3 and R. 2122-8 of the code de la commande publique.