EU Funding Guide: How the Main Programmes Fit Together

EU funding is money from the European Union budget that reaches companies, researchers and public bodies as grants, loans, guarantees, equity or subsidies. For a German company, the harder question is usually which door to knock on, because the same budget flows through Brussels, the Länder (Germany's federal states) and banks. This guide maps those routes, shows where you actually apply, and explains how the main European funding programmes connect, stack with national funding and change after 2027.

What is EU funding?

EU funding is financial support paid from the European Union budget to organisations whose work serves EU policy goals. The European Commission lists six types of EU funding: grants, financial instruments such as loans, guarantees and equity, subsidies, trust funds, prizes and public contracts. All of them are governed by one rulebook, the EU Financial Regulation.

For an innovative company, grants and financial instruments carry most of the value. Grants pay part of a project you propose; financial instruments give you capital on better terms, usually through a bank that carries an EU guarantee.

EU grants rarely cover the whole bill. In Horizon Europe (2021-2027), a profit-making company in an Innovation Action is funded at 70% of eligible costs. Research and Innovation Actions pay 100%, and indirect costs are added at a flat 25%. The gap is real cash: on a EUR 2 million budget, the company finds EUR 600,000 itself (illustrative, using the official 70% rate).

Where does EU funding come from?

EU funding comes from the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the EU's seven-year budget, which fixes how much each programme can spend. According to the European Commission, the 2021-2027 MFF is worth €1.211 trillion. NextGenerationEU, the temporary recovery instrument, adds €806.9 billion, for a combined €2.018 trillion in current prices.

Programme budgets sit inside that envelope and can move. The Horizon Europe programme started at €95.5 billion, including €5.4 billion from NextGenerationEU, according to the EU Publications Office. After the mid-term review of the MFF, the Commission now gives €93.5 billion as the indicative amount. When two guides quote different Horizon Europe figures, this is usually why.

According to the Commission, the Horizon Europe work programme for 2026-2027 is worth €14 billion. It plans lump sums for half of the call budget and a two-stage evaluation on 41 topics, and it covers the last two years of the current budget.

Direct, shared and indirect: the three routes EU money takes

The EU spends its budget through three management modes, and each one decides where you apply. In direct management, the Commission and its agencies run every step, from the call to the payment. In shared management, the Commission and national authorities run a programme together. According to the European Union's official website, around 70% of EU programmes work this way. Indirect management hands delivery to partner organisations and accounts for around 10% of the EU budget.

Source: European Union, Funding, grants, subsidies; InvestEU programme page. Checked September 2026.

Directly managed calls run on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal. Horizon Europe is the largest, and our guide to the Horizon Europe structure shows where a single call topic sits inside its pillars and clusters.

Shared funding is organised at home. The Commission's 2021-2027 partnership agreement with Germany covers more than €20 billion of cohesion funding across 52 programmes: 31 regional, 2 national and 19 Interreg. Each of the 16 Länder manages its own programme for the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF, EFRE in German) and the European Social Fund Plus (ESF Plus). Lower Saxony is the exception and runs a combined one.

Because each Land runs its own programme, geography is part of eligibility: a manufacturer in Bavaria and one in Saxony answer different ERDF calls. According to the federal ESF Plus portal, Germany receives around €17.4 billion from ERDF and ESF Plus in 2021-2027. The Just Transition Fund adds around €2.5 billion for regions most affected by the move to climate neutrality.

Financial instruments work through banks. According to the European Investment Bank (EIB), InvestEU uses a €26.2 billion EU budget guarantee to mobilise at least €372 billion of additional investment by 2027. The EIB Group implements 75% of the guarantee, and national promotional banks and international financial institutions can use the rest. You meet this money as a loan or equity on better terms.

Which EU funding programmes matter for companies?

For an innovative German company, seven European funding programmes carry most of the relevant money: Horizon Europe, the EIC Accelerator, the Digital Europe Programme, the EU Innovation Fund, InvestEU, the regional funds and Eurostars 3. They differ mainly by instrument, from grants to consortia and backing for single companies to finance through a bank.

Source: European Commission programme pages and the federal funding database (Förderdatenbank), checked September 2026. TRL: technology readiness level, from 1 (basic principle) to 9 (proven product).

To choose between the four programmes innovative firms apply to most often, read our comparison of EU funding programmes for companies.

How the programmes connect: seals, Plug-In and national payouts

EU programmes are linked by formal bridges that let a well-rated project move from one source of European grants to another. Most only become visible after a rejection.

The Seal of Excellence is the best known. The European Innovation Council (EIC) awards it to Accelerator applications that reach at least 13 out of 15 in remote evaluation but miss out on funding. That covers proposals not invited to interview and those the jury does not select, and the seal helps them secure funding from other sources.

The Plug-In scheme runs the other way, from national funding into the EIC. Under the EIC Accelerator rules, projects that come out of certified national or regional programmes can go straight to the full-application stage, and 50 programmes have been certified so far. In Digital Europe, some projects carry the STEP Seal, a quality label that eases access to other EU funding.

Eurostars 3 shows the third bridge: one European evaluation, paid out nationally. In one of our cases, an industrial software SME needed data and field expertise that only a foreign company had. The two firms filed one joint application, were evaluated once and were then paid separately at home. The German share, co-funded by the federal research ministry at roughly half of eligible costs, came to about EUR 420,000. Read our Eurostars 3 funding case study.

Two checks follow from these bridges:

• Rejected at the EIC with 13 or more points? Ask national and regional funders whether they accept the Seal of Excellence.
• Funded by a national or regional programme? Check whether it is certified for the Plug-In route.

Can you combine EU grants with German funding?

Yes, on the same project, but not on the same costs. Section 7 of the Forschungszulagengesetz (FZulG), the law behind Germany's research allowance, lets the Forschungszulage run alongside other funding for the same R&D project. It excludes costs already funded elsewhere from the assessment basis and states that the exclusion also applies to EU money.

Section 7 also requires your Forschungszulage application to include the information needed to check the split, so document it before anyone asks.

Illustrative, based on section 7 FZulG. Not a substitute for tax advice on your own project.

The hardest case is the own share. A profit-making company in a Horizon Europe Innovation Action is funded at 70% and carries 30% itself. Whether any of that share can enter a Forschungszulage claim is a question for your tax adviser, so do not budget on the assumption that it can.

Our overview of government funding in Germany shows what sits alongside EU money at federal and state level.

How do you apply for EU funding from Germany?

Applying for EU funding from Germany takes five steps: name the route, check the call rules, use the free national support, build the consortium and budget, and plan the timeline. The first step matters most, because it decides which portal and rules apply to you.

1. Name the route. Direct programmes use the Portal, ERDF and ESF Plus calls come from your Land, and InvestEU arrives through a financial partner.
2. Check the call rules before writing. Under the EIC Accelerator rules, you may have only one application in play at a time. The grant-only route is available once during Horizon Europe, and UK applicants can only apply for grant-only.
3. Use the free national support. German National Contact Points (Nationale Kontaktstellen) advise on Horizon Europe from the first idea to project close, free of charge and confidentially. Several sit in the EU Bureau of the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR).
4. Build the consortium and the budget. Most Horizon Europe collaborative calls need three partners from three countries, and your budget must cover the share the grant does not pay.
5. Plan the timeline. For the EIC Accelerator, short proposals get feedback in about 4 to 6 weeks and full proposals get remote results in about 8 to 9 weeks. The EIC lists the next full-proposal batch as closing on 4 November 2026.

Announcing the 2026-2027 work programme, Ekaterina Zaharieva, Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, said: "We have listened to researchers and innovators and made Horizon Europe simpler and more accessible to SMEs, start-ups and newcomers."

A strong Horizon Europe proposal starts with choosing the right topic. Our Horizon Europe funding consulting starts there: we check your project against the open topics and size your own share before you commit time. We also confirm whether a Research and Innovation Action at 100% or an Innovation Action at 70% matches your technology readiness. We then write the proposal, hold the consortium paperwork together, submit through the Funding & Tenders Portal and prepare the reporting after signature. The fee is success-based, so you pay once funding is approved or paid out.

What changes after 2027?

The 2028-2034 EU budget is still a proposal under negotiation. The Commission presented it on 16 July 2025 at almost €2 trillion, or 1.26% of EU gross national income on average. It would bring shared-management funds together in National and Regional Partnership Plans and create a European Competitiveness Fund with a single gateway for applicants.

Under the Commission's proposal, the competitiveness fund would focus on four areas: clean transition and decarbonisation, the digital transition, health, biotech, agriculture and bioeconomy, and defence and space. The same proposal would continue Horizon Europe alongside it with €175 billion.

Member States are still negotiating. On 16 June 2026, ministers in the General Affairs Council debated a revised negotiating box with figures for the headings and programmes. Until a deal is adopted, no 2028 rule is fixed, and the money you can apply for today runs through the 2026-2027 calls.

Where to start

Start by naming the route, then pick the programme. To see which EU and German programmes fit your project, compare funding programmes side by side.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Funding rules change, so check the current call documents or speak to an adviser before you apply.