Grant agreement

If aproject is selected for an EU grant under Erasmus+, a grant agreement is signed between the National or Executive Agency and the applicant. The applicant will receive the grant agreement, to be signed and returned to the National or Executive Agency; the National or Executive Agency is the last party to sign. When the grant is signed by both parties, the applicant becomes beneficiary of an EU grant and can start the project. 

Grant agreements may take the form of mono-beneficiary agreements, with the applicant being the single beneficiary, or multi-beneficiary agreements, where all partner organisations of the consortium become beneficiaries of the agreement. The multi-beneficiary agreement is signed by the coordinator which is the only contact point for the National or Executive Agency. However, all other organisations participating in a project (co-beneficiaries) sign an accession form to confer to the coordinator the responsibility of acting as coordinator. The the accession forms of each partner to the coordinator should be provided at application stage. If these accession forms are provided at a later stage, they must be made available at the latest by the time of the grant agreement signature.

Nota bene

Accessions forms are not required for partner organisations in countries other than the country of the applicant organisation in the case of Mobility projects for Higher education students and staff, Mobility projects for learners and staff in vocational education and training, Mobility projects for pupils and staff in school education and Mobility projects for staff in adult education. However, member organisations of national consortia in the fields of higher education, VET, school and adult education are required to provide an accession form to the applicant organisation.

Grant amount

The acceptance of an application does not constitute an undertaking to award funding equal to the amount requested by the applicant. The funding requested may be reduced on the basis of the specific financial rules applying to a given Action.

The award of a grant in a given round of selection does not establish an entitlement for subsequent rounds. It should be noted that the grant amount foreseen by the agreement is a maximum which cannot be increased, even if the beneficiary requests a higher amount. If the National Agency is the granting authority, for actions using a unit cost-based model, the grant amount foreseen by the agreement could be increased with exceptional costs.

Funds transferred by the Executive Agency or the National Agency must be identified within the account or sub-account indicated by the beneficiary for the payment of the grant.

Payment procedures

Depending on the type of Action, duration of the grant agreement and the assessment of financial risk, projects supported under the Erasmus+ Programme are subject to different payment procedures. 

Except for the first pre-financing payment, other payments or recoveries will be made on the basis of the analysis of reports or payment requests submitted by the beneficiary (the templates of these documents will be made available in the course of the year on the websites of National Agencies  or in the Funding and Tender Portal for the Executive Agency). 

The payment procedures applied under Erasmus+ are described below. 

Pre-financing payment 

A pre-financing payment will be transferred to the beneficiary within 30 days of the date when the last of the two parties signs the grant agreement (“entry into force”), and where relevant, when any appropriate financial guarantees are received (see section "financial guarantee" below). Pre-financing is intended to provide the beneficiary with a float. National Agencies or the Executive Agency may decide to split the first pre-financing payment into more instalments. They may also decide to reduce the pre-financing or not pay any pre-financing at all, if the financial capacity of the beneficiary is deemed weak. 

Further pre-financing payments 

Under some Actions, further pre-financing payments will be transferred to the beneficiary within 60 calendar days of the receipt, by the National Agency or the Executive Agency, of the further pre-financing payment requests advanced by the beneficiary, only if the further pre-financing payment request is accompanied by a pre-financing report. These further pre-financing payments may be requested when at least 70% of the previous pre-financing payment has been used up. Where the statement on the use of the previous pre-financing payment(s) shows that less than 70% of the previous pre-financing payment(s) has been used to cover costs of the action, the amount of the new pre-financing to be paid shall be reduced by the unused amounts of the previous pre-financing.

Interim or progress/technical reports 

Beneficiaries may be asked to submit a periodic or interim report accompanying the request for an interim payment. 

In other cases, beneficiaries can be as well requested to submit a progress report informing on the state of implementation of the project. Progress reports do not trigger a further payment. The interim and the progress reports must be submitted by the deadline indicated in the grant agreement.

Final payment or recovery of the balance

The amount of the final payment to be made to the beneficiary will be established on the basis of a final report to be submitted by the deadline indicated in the grant agreement. If a) the events generating the grant are not implemented or are implemented in a different way than planned; or b) the eligible costs actually incurred by the beneficiary are lower than those planned at application stage, or c) the quality of the realised activities/outputs is of insufficient quality, the funding may be reduced proportionally or, where applicable, the beneficiary will be required to repay any excess amounts already received as pre-financing payment. 

Under some Actions, the National or Executive Agency transfers 100% of the grant awarded through the pre-financings. In such cases a payment of the balance is not due. However, if - on the basis of a final report to be submitted by the beneficiary by the deadline indicated in the grant agreement - a) the events generating the grant are not implemented or are implemented in a different way than planned; or b) the eligible costs actually incurred by the beneficiary are lower than those planned at application stage, or c) the quality of the realised activities/outputs is of insufficient quality, the beneficiary will be required to repay any excess amounts already received as pre-financing payment. 

Pre-financing payments (or parts of them) may be offset (without the beneficiaries’ consent) against amounts owed by a beneficiary to the granting authority - up to the amount due to that beneficiary. 

The final payment will be issued within 60 calendar days of the receipt of the final report.