LIFE building energy renovation solutions
Grants for cross-border partnerships testing scalable building renovation models and practical energy assessment tools.
Denne finansieringsmulighed er i øjeblikket beskrevet på engelsk.
LIFE BETTERRENO supports approaches that make energy renovation easier to deliver at scale. The 2026 topic covers public and private residential and non-residential buildings.
Choose one main route and identify it in your proposal; justify any combination of the two scopes. Scope A develops replicable renovation business models, brings demand together across buildings and removes market barriers. It supports high-quality renovations with energy performance guarantees or other business models that build confidence, and more productive delivery through standardised processes, digital tools, supply-chain coordination and circular or low-carbon solutions. Coordinate with existing funding, one-stop shops and renovation support services, and adapt the approach to the markets you target.
Scope B improves the use of Energy Performance Certificates, which assess building energy performance, and Renovation Passports, which guide owners through staged renovation. Where relevant, it can connect these with other building assessments, digital building records and assessments of indoor environmental quality. The approach must follow national implementation of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and take existing funding and support services into account. Technology supports the work rather than being its main purpose; limited IT development needs clear added value over existing tools.
Both routes must test their approach in real buildings or renovation projects. Estimate relevant results and impacts at project completion and five years later.
The 2026 grant reimburses up to 95% of eligible project costs. The Commission considers an EU contribution of up to €2 million appropriate, but proposals requesting other amounts can be selected. Funding pays for enabling work such as coordination, stakeholder engagement, skills and rollout of services and instruments. Actual construction works, materials and infrastructure costs are excluded. Limited equipment costs, such as monitoring or testing equipment, may qualify if the proposal justifies that the equipment is indispensable to the action. Eligible costs reflect the equipment’s loss of value during the project (depreciation), rather than automatically covering its full purchase price.
Eligibility
- Form a project partnership (consortium) with at least three applicants that will sign the grant agreement as beneficiaries, from three different eligible countries. Affiliated entities—organisations linked to a beneficiary that share in the work and grant money but do not sign the grant agreement—do not count toward this minimum. Choose a coordinator to manage and represent the partnership; it must be established in an eligible country.
- Public or private legal entities qualify in EU Member States, including overseas countries and territories, and Iceland, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Ukraine. Norway and Liechtenstein do not participate. Serbia was negotiating association in the March 2026 list. For countries that requested association, the association agreement must enter into force by the end of selection. For countries in ongoing negotiations, those negotiations must finish before grant signature and the agreement must cover this call, including its programme part and year. The granting authority may exceptionally fund an entity elsewhere if its involvement is essential.
- Individuals cannot apply except self-employed sole traders. International organisations are eligible without the usual country restriction. An entity without legal personality may participate exceptionally if its representatives can undertake legal obligations and provide equivalent protection for EU financial interests.
- EU bodies are excluded except the European Commission Joint Research Centre. If an association’s members carry out the work, they must participate as beneficiaries or affiliated entities for their costs to qualify.
- Activities normally take place in eligible countries. Work elsewhere must be necessary for EU environmental and climate objectives and for effective interventions within eligible countries.
- Applicants need sufficient financial resources, relevant experience, staff and other resources to deliver the work and contribute their share. EU restrictive measures bar participation in any role; EU conditionality measures bar funded roles, including the Hungarian public-interest trusts and maintained entities identified in the call.
- This supports removing market barriers rather than technology development or demonstration projects. You cannot pass financial support to third parties under BETTERRENO.
- Project revenues plus the EU grant cannot exceed project costs. For-profit organisations must declare project revenues, and any surplus is deducted from the final grant amount. The same action normally receives only one EU-budget grant, and costs cannot be declared under two EU grants. Separate actions must have no overlaps. An EU operating grant can be combined only when the project sits outside its work programme and costs remain separately accounted for without duplicate declarations.
- Israeli regional or local authorities and public or private legal entities must be established within Israel’s pre-1967 borders. Their funded activities, and those of Israeli national authorities, cannot take place in the Golan Heights, Gaza Strip or West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The activity restriction has an exception for work benefiting protected persons under international humanitarian law or promoting the Middle East peace process in line with EU policy. The guidelines exempt natural persons from these particular establishment/activity rules; the LIFE applicant restrictions still apply.
How to apply
- Status
- lukket
- Åbner
- Lukker
- Vilkår for ansøgningsrunden
- Closed 2026 single-stage call.
The 2026 single-stage call is closed. Read CINEA’s BETTERRENO topic page and the 2026 call rules for the terms of that round.
Applications for that round were submitted through the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System; paper applications were not accepted. Beneficiaries and affiliated entities had to register in the Participant Register before submission and undergo legal-entity validation.