Digital Europe Programme 2026 Calls: Up to €14.4 Million per Project, Closing 1 October 2026

Digital Europe Programme 2026 Calls: Up to €14.4 Million per Project, Closing 1 October 2026

The Digital Europe Programme (usually written as DIGITAL) is where the EU stops writing strategy documents about digital transformation and starts paying for the systems themselves. Its 10th round of calls for proposals opened on 21 April 2026 and closes on 1 October 2026 at 17:00:00 CEST (Brussels time), a single-stage deadline that applies to every topic in the round.

If you arrived here looking for a general “cloud consortium” call, note that the current round does not contain one. The 2026 topics are narrower and more concrete than that: health data infrastructure under the European Health Data Space, advanced digital skills, the network of Safer Internet Centres, and digital tooling for regulatory compliance. Knowing which topic you are actually eligible for matters far more than knowing the programme exists.

The 2026 Round at a Glance

The three open calls are managed by two different bodies. DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-10 and DIGITAL-2026-BESTUSE-10 are run by the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA), which announced them together as a €36.9 million package across five topics. DIGITAL-2026-AI-DATA-10 is run directly by DG CONNECT and adds a sixth topic worth €8.5 million. If you read only the HaDEA announcement, you will miss that third call entirely.

The Six Topics, With Real Numbers

DIGITAL-2026-BESTUSE-10 — Accelerating the Best Use of Technologies (€24.4 million)

BESTUSE-10-EHDS — €14.4 million. This is the flagship of the round: building capacity to deploy the European Electronic Health Record Exchange Format (EEHRxF) and the digital health services that support citizens’ rights and health-data reuse under the European Health Data Space. The Commission expects to fund a single project at the full €14.4 million. It runs as a Grants for Financial Support action at a 100% funding rate over 48 months, and requires a minimum of 5 independent applicants from 5 different eligible countries. Applicants must also submit a list of key projects from the last four years, with particular attention to any experience managing financial support to third parties — a strong hint about what the evaluators are checking.

BESTUSE-10-NETWORKSICs — €10 million. Ensuring comprehensive geographical coverage of the Network of Safer Internet Centres. This one is structured very differently: it is a Simple Grant at a 50% funding rate, running up to 18 months, with no minimum consortium size. Award ceilings are set by country population: €1,175,000 for large countries (over 20 million people), €750,000 for medium countries (6 to 20 million), and €450,000 for small countries (under 6 million). Population figures as published by Eurostat for 1 January 2025 are the reference.

DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-10 — Advanced Digital Skills (€12.5 million)

SKILLS-10-DIGITAL-HEALTH-STEP — €7.8 million, at a maximum of €3.9 million per project, so roughly two grants. Advanced digital skills for AI uptake in health. Lump-sum grant at a 50% funding rate, indicatively 48 months, minimum 4 applicants from 4 different eligible countries.

SKILLS-10-NATIONAL-COALITIONS — €2 million, maximum €2 million per project. This supports the National Coalitions for Digital Skills and Jobs, and the consortium rule is unusually prescriptive: minimum 5 independent applicants from at least 4 eligible countries, of which at least 4 must be National Coalitions previously funded under CEF-TC-2019-2, CEF-TC-2020-2, or DIGITAL-2024-ADVANCED-DIGITAL-06-SKILLS. It is a Coordination and Support Action at a 100% funding rate, running 24 to 36 months. If you are not already inside that network, this topic is effectively closed to you as a lead.

SKILLS-10-EDTECH — €2.7 million, maximum €2.7 million per project, so a single grant. An EdTech accelerator, run as a Coordination and Support Action at 100% funding, indicatively 36 months, minimum 4 applicants from 4 different eligible countries.

DIGITAL-2026-AI-DATA-10 — AI Continent (€8.5 million)

AI-DATA-10-COMPLIANCE — €8.5 million, with individual project budgets between €2 million and €5 million, so two grants are likely. The topic covers digital solutions for regulatory compliance through data: advanced data collection, analysis, and secure storage using AI to support real-time compliance checks in sectors carrying heavy administrative burden, such as agriculture, environment, manufacturing, healthcare, and energy. Solutions must be open source, interoperable with existing government data systems, and aligned with European data standards, with a documented data governance framework. It is a lump-sum grant at a 50% funding rate over 24 months, requiring minimum 3 independent applicants from 3 different eligible countries — the lowest consortium threshold in the round.

Who Can Apply

Applicants must be legal entities, public or private, established in an eligible country: an EU Member State (including overseas countries and territories), a listed EEA country, or a country associated to the Digital Europe Programme. Every beneficiary and affiliated entity has to be registered in the Participant Register and validated by the Central Validation Service before submission — start that early, because validation is document-heavy and not instant.

A few exclusions catch people out. Natural persons are not eligible, with a narrow exception for sole traders whose business has no separate legal personality. International organisations are not eligible unless they qualify as international organisations of European interest, meaning most of their members are Member States or their headquarters sit in a Member State. Entities without legal personality may participate only if their representatives can take on legal obligations and offer equivalent protection of EU financial interests.

The round also carries supply-chain restrictions. Entities assessed as high-risk suppliers of mobile network communication equipment, and any entities they own or control, are barred from participating in any capacity — beneficiary, affiliated entity, associated partner, subcontractor, in-kind contributor, or recipient of financial support to third parties. The assessment criteria sit in Appendix 4 of the 2025-2027 work programme, amended by Commission Implementing Decision C(2026) 1781 final of 19 March 2026.

How Proposals Are Scored

All three calls use the same three award criteria, each scored out of 5:

• Relevance — alignment with the topic description, contribution to long-term policy objectives and synergies with national and European activity, and where applicable, the extent to which the project reinforces the EU digital technology supply chain or overcomes financial obstacles such as a lack of market finance.
• Implementation — project maturity, soundness of the implementation plan and efficient use of resources, and the capacity of the applicants and the consortium as a whole.
• Impact — achievement of the expected outcomes and deliverables, dissemination plans, strengthened competitiveness and societal benefit, and environmental sustainability in line with European Green Deal goals.

Each criterion carries a minimum pass score of 3 out of 5, and the overall threshold is 10 out of 15. Proposals that clear both the individual and overall thresholds are considered for funding up to the budget ceiling; everything else is rejected. With single-project topics like EHDS and EdTech, clearing the threshold is not enough — you need to outscore the field.

Note the structural consequence of that scoring. A proposal cannot compensate for a weak Implementation section with a brilliant Relevance section. Three mediocre-but-passing scores get you to 9 and a rejection. Balance beats brilliance in one dimension.

Required Materials

Submission is electronic only, through the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System, reached from the topic page. Paper submissions are not accepted, and you must use the forms inside the Submission System rather than the information-only copies published on the topic page.

• Application Form Part A — administrative information on the coordinator, beneficiaries, and affiliated entities, plus the summarised project budget, completed online.
• Application Form Part B — the technical description, downloaded as a template, completed, and re-uploaded. Part B is capped at 70 pages, and evaluators will not read past that.
• Detailed budget table / calculator — required for the AI-DATA-10 compliance topic, not for BESTUSE-10. For lump-sum topics this table is the basis for fixing the grant, so costs must satisfy the normal eligibility conditions for actual-cost grants. Ineligible costs in the table can reduce the grant even years later.
• List of previous projects — required for BESTUSE-10-EHDS, covering key projects from the last four years, with clear indication of any involving financial support to third parties.
• Declarations — at submission you confirm you have the mandate to act for all applicants and that all participants meet the eligibility, capacity, and exclusion conditions. Each beneficiary signs a declaration of honour before the grant is signed. Proposals without full support are rejected outright.

CVs of the core team and prior-year activity reports are not required at proposal stage for these topics, though you may be asked for further documents later for legal entity validation, financial capacity checks, or bank account validation.

Practical Preparation Advice

Pick the topic before you design the project. The six topics differ in funding rate (50% versus 100%), grant form (lump sum versus actual cost versus financial support to third parties), duration (18 to 48 months), and consortium minimum (none to five countries). A project designed generically and then aimed at a topic reads exactly like what it is.

Check the consortium rule first, not last. The National Coalitions topic requires four previously funded coalitions in the consortium. EHDS requires five countries. Discovering that eight weeks before the deadline is fatal; discovering it now is a partner-recruitment task.

Understand what a 50% funding rate means for your budget. Lump-sum topics at 50% require you to fund the other half from national, institutional, or private sources. Have that co-funding identified and, ideally, evidenced before you submit — evaluators reading the Implementation criterion will notice if it is hand-waved.

Budget the legal and governance work properly. Every topic in this round touches regulated data: health records under EHDS, compliance data across regulated sectors, child safety online. Data governance, interoperability, and standards work are not overhead here, they are the deliverable.

Submit early. Portal validation issues, missing PIC numbers, and unsigned declarations are entirely predictable failure modes. Aim to submit at least two days before 1 October 2026 rather than in the final hours.

What Happens After You Submit

Timelines differ slightly by call. For SKILLS-10, evaluation runs October to November 2026, results are communicated in December 2026, and grant agreements are signed around February 2027. For BESTUSE-10, evaluation runs October to December 2026, results arrive in January 2027, and signature is expected in June 2027. For AI-DATA-10, evaluation runs October to November 2026, results come in January or February 2027, and signature is expected around May or June 2027.

Projects normally start after grant signature. A retroactive start date can be granted for duly justified reasons, but never earlier than the date you submitted the proposal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a cloud infrastructure or data space topic in this round? No. The 2026 round does not include a dedicated cloud or general data-space topic. The closest data-focused topic is AI-DATA-10-COMPLIANCE, which is about regulatory compliance tooling rather than infrastructure. Future rounds under the 2025-2027 work programme may differ.

Do I always need three countries? No. Three different eligible countries is the minimum for AI-DATA-10-COMPLIANCE. SKILLS topics require four, EHDS requires five, and NETWORKSICs sets no consortium minimum at all.

Can non-EU organisations take part? Entities in listed EEA countries and countries associated to the Digital Europe Programme are eligible on the same basis as Member State entities. Others may join in non-funded roles such as associated partners or subcontractors, subject to the call rules and the supply-chain restrictions.

Is the €14.4 million figure a ceiling I can aim for? Only for the EHDS topic, where a single project is expected at that amount. Every other topic has its own, much lower ceiling — €3.9 million, €2.7 million, €2 million, €5 million, or the population-based tiers for Safer Internet Centres.

How does DIGITAL differ from Horizon Europe? Horizon Europe funds research and innovation. DIGITAL funds deployment and capacity — putting proven technology into operation at scale. If your main outputs are papers and prototypes, you are aiming at the wrong programme.

Can I combine this with national funding? Yes, and for 50%-rate topics you effectively must. Just avoid double-funding the same cost, which is an eligibility problem rather than a paperwork one.

Get Started

Official work programmes, call documents, topic pages, and the submission portal are reachable from the European Commission programme page:

Digital Europe Programme: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/activities/digital-programme

The HaDEA announcement covering the SKILLS-10 and BESTUSE-10 calls is here: https://hadea.ec.europa.eu/news/new-calls-proposals-under-digital-europe-programme-published-2026-04-10_en

Read the call document for your specific topic before anything else. The topic text, not the programme overview, is what evaluators score you against — and with a hard close at 17:00 Brussels time on 1 October 2026, there is no extension to plan around.