European City Facility, call 8: €60,000 for municipalities to develop an investment concept for energy efficiency and clean energy, Ukraine eligible, apply by 21 December

The European City Facility (EUCF), funded by the European Union through the LIFE Programme, has announced its eighth call for proposals. The facility provides financial and technical backing to help local governments turn their climate and energy strategies into viable, finance-ready investment packages.

Selected beneficiaries will receive a fixed lump-sum grant of €60,000 to produce an investment concept for clean energy or energy efficiency projects. The call has a total budget of €3,720,000 to support 62 local authorities, opening on 26 October 2026 and accepting applications until 21 December 2026 at 17:00 Brussels time.

What is funded

The grant funds the activities required to prepare a comprehensive Investment Concept, which is a document designed to provide investors and financial institutions with the data needed to evaluate an investment project. Eligible preparatory actions include technical feasibility studies, market assessments, legal and economic analyses, stakeholder mappings, and risk assessments.

These activities can be delivered either by the municipality’s in-house staff or through subcontracted external experts. Funding is intended specifically to mobilise resources and procure specialized advisory services, meaning it cannot be used to finance actual infrastructure works or capital investments.

Who can apply

Eligible applicants include municipalities, local authorities, their groupings, and local public entities aggregating municipalities. Participation is open to entities established in any of the 27 EU Member States, Iceland, Ukraine, Moldova, Montenegro, or North Macedonia.

The call is divided across three regional lots to allocate awards evenly. Out of the 62 available grants, 16 are reserved for the Nordic and Western Europe region, 23 for Southern Europe, and 23 for Central and Eastern Europe, which includes Ukraine and the candidate countries.

Conditions and requirements

Applicants must have an adopted climate or energy plan with mitigation targets, such as a Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP) under the Covenant of Mayors, or an equivalent local energy framework. For this call, heating and cooling plans developed in line with Article 25(6) of the EU Energy Efficiency Directive are also accepted.

Proposals require proof of political support through a formal letter signed by the mayor or an authorized political representative, along with a commitment to participate in a two-year monitoring period following the project. Applications are evaluated across four criteria: the ambition of the proposed concept, governance structure, stakeholder engagement strategy, and overall coherence and plausibility.

Practical tip. Local authorities are strongly encouraged to submit joint applications with neighbouring municipalities or through regional aggregators. Pooling projects into a joint submission raises the scale and financial ambition of the proposed investment concept, which significantly improves the project’s evaluation score.

How to apply

The application procedure is entirely online and consists of two consecutive steps. Applicants must first complete an automated eligibility self-check on the EUCF website, which immediately verifies basic administrative criteria.

Upon successfully passing the eligibility check, applicants gain access to the application portal to fill out and submit the formal proposal forms. The portal opens on 26 October 2026, and all files must be submitted before the deadline on 21 December 2026 at 17:00 Brussels time.

Applications are submitted on the donor’s page: eucityfacility.eu.