A single contractor, €1.5 billion: the number that defines the market

Among all disclosed contract awards in Belgium's CPV 45 (construction work) sector recorded on TED (EU Tenders Electronic Daily), one firm — Entreprises Générales Dherte — reported a single award worth approximately €1.53 billion. That figure alone exceeds the combined reported value of the sixth through twelfth largest winners in the dataset. It is the sharpest illustration of a recurring pattern in Belgian construction procurement: a market that is broad in volume but strikingly concentrated in value.

Volume is growing

Total notices published by Belgian contracting authorities (public bodies required to advertise contracts above EU thresholds) under CPV 45 rose from 1,314 in 2025 to 1,638 in 2026 — an increase of roughly 25%. Contract notices specifically (invitations to tender, as opposed to award notices) climbed from 997 to 1,221 over the same period. Award notices rose more modestly, from 449 to 506.

The gap between contract notices and awards is not unusual; award notices often follow with a lag, and not every procedure results in a published award on TED.

Reported value fell sharply — but coverage explains part of the story

Total reported awarded value dropped from approximately €16.3 billion in 2025 to €8.8 billion in 2026. This figure requires careful interpretation. Value coverage — the share of award notices that disclosed a contract value — stood at 87.8% in 2025 and 83.6% in 2026. The lower coverage in 2026, combined with the later stage of that calendar year in the dataset, likely accounts for a substantial portion of the apparent decline. Neither figure should be treated as a complete picture of total public construction spend.

Competition: adequate but not intense

Where bid counts were reported, the average number of bids per lot held broadly stable: 4.86 in 2025 and 4.77 in 2026. The share of contracts attracting only a single bid — a standard proxy for market stress or limited competition — was 10.5% in 2025 and 10.9% in 2026. The overall competitiveness score (a composite index in the underlying data) edged down from 72 to 70. These figures suggest a market that functions, but where roughly one in ten contracts goes uncontested.

Value concentration is rising

The top five winners by disclosed value accounted for 26.8% of total reported awarded value in 2025. In 2026 that share rose to 35.7%. The number of distinct winners remained almost flat — 316 in 2025, 321 in 2026 — indicating that the concentration is driven by a small number of very large individual contracts rather than by fewer firms winning overall.

The top twelve winners by value, as disclosed in the dataset, include several joint ventures and consortia (TM Artes Depret nv – Artes Roegiers nv, GS Solutions, EBN-Tech, TEAplus, Tasöz), which is consistent with the scale of infrastructure contracts that characterise the upper end of this market.

Who is winning the largest contracts?

Beyond Dherte's headline figure, the second-largest reported award went to the consortium TM Artes Depret nv – Artes Roegiers nv at approximately €1.32 billion from a single contract. DCA Infra NV reported €762 million across two awards; GS Solutions €723 million across two. BESIX Unitec and JACOPS each recorded three wins, at €715 million and €678 million respectively — suggesting that repeat success at high value is achievable but not common.

Four firms — B.R.O. Technics, EBN-Tech, TEAplus, and Tasöz — each reported identical values of €674,778,000 from a single award, which strongly suggests they were part of the same multi-lot or framework procedure.

Methodology note

All data are drawn from TED (EU Tenders Electronic Daily), covering Belgian contracting authorities publishing under CPV division 45 (construction work) for the years 2025 and 2026. Award value coverage was 87.8% in 2025 and 83.6% in 2026, meaning a minority of award notices did not disclose a contract value; aggregate value figures are therefore minima, not totals. Bid-count averages are based solely on notices that reported a bid count. The 2026 figures may be further affected by publication lags typical of the current calendar year. Winner rankings reflect disclosed values only and may not capture the full activity of any given firm.