BIM charter, BIM brief and BIM protocol: the documents behind a French BIM project

The BIM charter: the client's policy

No French regulation defines the BIM charter. The MIQCP guidance for public clients ("BIM et maquette numérique", July 2016) describes it as a generic document drawn up by the client. It turns the client's policy into quality and performance goals that apply to all of its projects, not to one in particular.

On its own, the charter is not binding: it is mainly there to inform, and a client can state in the tender documents that it is not contractual. It usually covers the client's approach, who is involved and who is responsible for what, quality and performance goals, and general technical rules such as file formats, modelling rules or data ownership.

Professional bodies and large clients have also published template charters. Teams often start from one of them and adapt it to their own policy.

The BIM brief: the requirements for one project

The BIM brief, on the other hand, does have a definition. Article 2 of the French general conditions for design contracts (CCAG Maîtrise d'œuvre, order of 30 March 2021) describes it as the document in which the client sets out the requirements and objectives for everyone who works on the project in turn, and as the BIM part of the client's brief. The general conditions for works contracts (CCAG Travaux) use the same definition.

The client writes it, possibly with a BIM consultant, and usually builds it on its charter. In a public works or design contract that refers to the CCAG without departing from it on this point, article 4 lists it among the contract documents, which makes it binding.

Its content varies from one client to another. You will typically find definitions of key terms, BIM goals and uses, the parties and their roles, how the process is organised, the expected deliverables and technical requirements: file formats, units, folder structure, coding, classifications and naming rules. Readers used to ISO 19650 will recognise much of what an exchange information requirements document (EIR) contains.

The BIM protocol: the design team's answer

The CCAG Maîtrise d'œuvre also defines the project's BIM protocol (convention BIM): the document that describes how the project data will be organised, represented, managed and transferred. It answers the goals the client set out in the BIM brief.

A practice note from the French national council of architects (CNOA, August 2018) fills in the rest. The protocol is sometimes called a "protocole BIM". It is written by the team member who holds the BIM management role, co-signed by the members of the design team and attached to their contract, which makes it contractual. Contractors can sign it in turn, which leads to a design protocol and a construction protocol.

It is usually drawn up at preliminary design stage (APS) and updated for construction; at competition stage, a short BIM note is enough. It is filed on the project's collaboration platform or document management system.

According to the same CNOA note, its minimum content covers the points below. The detailed outline the note proposes also adds quality control and what happens when the protocol is not followed.

• the project parties and their software, with versions;
• the BIM uses chosen and how tasks are split at each stage;
• the common data environment, that is the exchange platform;
• exchange formats, native or IFC, with the IFC version used;
• the level of detail and information expected at each stage;
• the expected deliverables.

Where does the BEP fit?

The BEP (BIM execution plan) comes from the ISO 19650 series. Part 2 (2018) presents it as the plan in which the delivery team explains how it will manage information during its appointment, in response to the appointing party's information requirements. It distinguishes a pre-appointment BEP, which shows what the team can do, from a post-appointment BEP, which the team then works to. Our ISO 19650 overview explains the rest of that vocabulary.

On French projects, the BEP plays a role close to the BIM protocol: both are the team's answer to the client's requirements. The two terms come from different frameworks, though, and what each one must contain depends on the contract.

Are these documents compulsory?

As of 21 October 2026, no French regulation makes BIM or the IFC format compulsory across the board. The French public procurement code (article R. 2132-10) allows a public buyer to require electronic building information modelling tools. When it does, the contract documents set the requirements, starting with the BIM brief.

At EU level, a proposal for a new public procurement regulation (COM(2026) 590, 9 September 2026) would require BIM for works contracts worth at least 25 million euros, using open and interoperable formats. It had not been adopted at that date and does not name IFC.

From documents to IDS: making requirements checkable

Charter, brief and protocol are written for people. Yet part of what they ask for concerns the content of the models: this property on these objects, this classification, this naming rule. That part can be expressed as IDS (Information Delivery Specification), the buildingSMART XML format that software can check against every IFC model delivered. Our page on BIM requirements and IDS covers the format and its limits.

In SeveUp App, the "Create BIM requirements" task starts from your own documents: Word, Excel, PDF, CSV or plain text. The AI extracts rules from them and flags conflicts between rules. You then approve, reject or edit each rule; nothing goes into the IDS without your sign-off. Finally, "Compile IDS" produces files validated with ifctester, the open source tool from IfcOpenShell. Review the result before relying on it: it is only as good as the documents you started from.

If you already have an IDS file, the guide on checking BIM requirements with IDS shows how to import it and check your models. Our article on IDS, the file that makes BIM requirements checkable looks at where the format comes from.