Kommunalrichtlinie

Eligible applicants are municipalities, including applications for their legally dependent operations; legally independent businesses and institutions with at least 25% municipal ownership; and associations of municipalities. Public, nonprofit, charitable and religious bodies can apply for their educational, childcare, youth, health, cultural, care, accommodation and social-assistance facilities, excluding federal institutions. Registered nonprofit/charitable associations can apply for facilities they operate. Religious communities with public-law corporate status and their foundations also qualify.

There are important branch-specific extensions. Other organizations, including companies but excluding individuals, can participate in municipal networks. Companies with a municipal waste-disposal mandate can apply for feasibility studies and waste measures. Public-law water-management associations qualify for feasibility studies, wastewater and drinking-water measures. Companies delivering investment projects as energy-service contractors may apply only for projects for municipalities. These contractors act in their own name and at their own expense and carry the financial risk; their remuneration is wholly or partly tied to achieved energy-efficiency improvements and energy supply. For this route, submit the draft contract, include the municipality's waiver of its own grant claim, and provide the signed contract and joint information/audit declaration by the notification of project commencement. Only districts can apply for climate coordination.

Your project must go beyond existing, expected statutory and governing-document obligations. You need sufficient staff and money, secured total financing and confirmed own funds; supplementary grants and loans must be evidenced. You cannot receive support if insolvency proceedings have been requested or opened. Applicants and responsible individuals must not have made, or be obliged to make, a sworn disclosure of assets under the specified enforcement provisions. Investment projects normally need an economic payback period. All branch requirements in the directive and technical annex apply.

Where you request employee funding—for school/childcare energy-saving schemes, district coordination, first or follow-on climate management, or implementation management—the employee must be additional to your existing staff. The funded workload must be at least 50% of a full-time post, and joint projects between multiple applicants cannot receive personnel funding.

For strategic work, check the following conditions:

• Introductory advice and a first integrated climate plan require that you have no integrated plan and, for a district municipality, are not already participating in the district's plan. A first integrated plan also requires complex administrative/economic structures across several fields and substantial potential to save energy and emissions. Advice covers up to 20 consultant days, half in direct discussion, and must initiate at least one measure during the funded period.
• School and childcare energy-saving schemes must be introduced for the first time, have the top decision-making body's approval and identify the starting facilities. They include annual incentives, energy teams and annual networking; hold the opening event within six months.
• Networks need 6–15 participants, no overlap in identical-topic networks, qualified management and quarterly meetings. They cannot cover mandatory energy audits or be focused on hydrogen, extracurricular environmental/sustainability education, a single model topic such as biochar, or heat networks.
• Feasibility studies must concern clearly defined plants or infrastructure over which you can make investment decisions. Normally there must be no existing feasibility study for that subject. If an existing potential or feasibility study did not include HOAI planning phases 2–4, those phases may be funded: preliminary planning compares alternatives and selects a preferred option, design planning develops that option and its cost calculation, and approval planning prepares the permit application. Approval planning is funded only where the subject needs a permit. Excluded topics include conventional building/heating renovation, heat networks, new neighbourhood energy/heat concepts, electricity balancing or virtual islands, regional/zoning/road/rail plans, ground-mounted solar, nature restoration, climate adaptation, hydrogen and commercial-vehicle drives using technologies/fuels not yet established, such as fuel cells. Wastewater studies must plan at least 70% onsite renewable electricity/heat coverage and no more than 30 kWh annual electricity per population equivalent; separately evidenced advanced treatment may be excluded from that calculation. Drinking-water studies must plan a 20% reduction in energy per cubic metre without harming quality.
• District coordination requires the top body's approval and participation declarations from at least 25% of subordinate units.
• For first integrated plans, submit an outline within 12 months and a draft for the implementation decision within 18 months of the award period starting, then initiate at least one measure. Follow-on management requires a compliant plan no older than 36 months, an implementation/monitoring decision and an unimplemented plan. Apply at least six months before the first award period ends; municipalities using their district's plan have until 12 months after that period ends. The manager must be willing to mentor for six days per year.
• Focused mobility/waste plans require no previous plan for that field, including participation in a district plan. Implementation staff require an approved focused/subsector plan no older than 36 months and no previous implementation manager for it. The special route for integrated plans originally supported under the pre-2022 transitional rule requires application at least six months before the initial management period ends.

For investments, lighting upgrades must demonstrate at least 50% greenhouse gas savings and use qualified lighting design. Outdoor/street lighting is normally limited to 3,000 K; sports lighting can reach 4,000 K where the sport requires it. Outdoor lights must not emit upwards and ground floodlights are excluded. Indoor lighting needs at least 100 lumens per watt, 80% light output retained at 50,000 hours and colour rendering of at least 80. Cycling facilities must serve everyday use; tourism-only routes do not qualify, and moving-cycle infrastructure must be publicly dedicated. Bike+Ride's higher rate requires the 100-metre station/stop distance.

Green-waste collection needs a planned system of additional decentralized sites outside existing waste-treatment/collection premises and quality-assured composting. Asphalt normally needs at least 40% recycled material; a regulatory exception must be explained in the application. Organic-waste digestion requires widespread compulsory biobin collection in place or demonstrably being implemented/planned. It must meet the annex's gas-tight processing, recovery and emissions specifications, including at least 90% of input methane potential recovered, annual external leakage/emissions checks and monthly internal checks.

Landfill measures concern substantial biodegradable waste deposited before 1 June 2005 and need a compliant feasibility study no older than two years. Gas capture must increase capture by at least 25% or capture at least 60% overall and use the gas efficiently for energy. Aerobic stabilisation applies when gas can no longer be used for energy; demonstrate at least 50% emissions savings, no more than 12 kg biodegradable organic dry matter per tonne, the competent authority's approval and process monitoring.

Most wastewater measures need a compliant study no older than two years; an equally demanding recent DWA-A 216 study can substitute. Component replacements and sewer-network measures are exempt from the study requirement. Wastewater quality must not worsen. Shared sludge treatment requires participating plants within 50 km and transport emissions no higher than the savings; sewer-network improvements need at least 25% energy savings against the preceding three years. Other branches cover conversion to digestion, replacing fossil sludge drying, sealing open digested-sludge storage, efficient treatment, nitrous-oxide reduction and greater digester-gas output. Nitrous-oxide treatment must exceed 90% reduction and cost less than €100 per tonne CO₂ equivalent; gas-output improvements require existing digestion, at least 30 standard litres per population equivalent per day and at least energy-neutral changes.

Water and wastewater motor/pump replacements must meet the annex's efficiency specifications. Drinking-water system optimisation needs a study no older than two years and at least 20% lower energy use per cubic metre without harming water quality. Individual drinking-water pump/fan systems must improve total efficiency by at least 10% and reach at least 70%, or 65% for pumps below 80 m³/hour with modern variable-speed drives. Swimming-pool support replaces uncontrolled pumps with controllable high-efficiency pumps with frequency converters.

Investment assets must remain dedicated to the funded purpose for five years from acceptance. If you do not own the asset/site, supply a valid lease or equivalent agreement and the owner's installation consent, with exclusive control throughout that period. Notify ownership changes. Market activities, such as selling goods or services, undergo EU state-aid assessment; infrastructure available free to the public is generally outside those rules. Aid limits and the applicable exclusions can change eligibility or the award; disclose previous de minimis aid over the rolling three-year period. Under the block-exemption route, ZUG checks the project against EU aid conditions. Companies meeting the financial-distress exclusion in Article 2(18) of the General Block Exemption Regulation, and companies with an outstanding Commission recovery order, are excluded.

Status

closes 31 Dec 2027

Opens

1 Feb 2025

Closes

31 Dec 2027

Round restrictions

• Applications remain open, subject to available funds. For awards under the EU General Block Exemption Regulation, the directive is limited to 30 June 2027; non-aid and other aid awards run to 31 December 2027.[^c16][^c17]

Select the branch on the official Kommunalrichtlinie page and use its required project-description and calculation templates. Submit a separate application for each measure through easy-Online to ZUG. Applications have been digital-only since 1 June 2026. Complete the email-confirmation procedure within 15 minutes of receiving the code, or use a qualified electronic signature. An authorized signatory must confirm submission; if someone else submits, or several approvals are required internally, attach a power of attorney or send it to ZUG within 14 days. ZUG also offers individual pre-application assistance through nki-kommunalrichtlinie@z-u-g.org.

Wait for grant approval before starting or signing implementation, supply, employment or energy-service contracts. Planning may precede application only when it is not itself the funded feasibility study. You may prepare tenders or obtain offers before approval only with an explicit condition that award/signature depends on funding approval, and confirmation of the required procurement rules. Starting early can cause rejection or retrospective recovery with interest.

Complete the work within the agreed award period. Award all contracts and notify ZUG no later than nine months after that period starts. Apply for a duration extension at least one month before the period ends using the online change form. Publish the required project information and funding logos online; keep the page available until ZUG finishes checking the final evidence. Investments also need a visible funding notice for the five-year dedication period, and you must supply emissions and evaluation data.

Submit the final spending evidence within six months for strategic work or three months for investments after the funded purpose is fulfilled, and no later than those same periods after the award period expires. It includes the financial-use form provided in profi-Online, the expenditure list and the final report completed in the NKI monitoring tool, plus required branch documents. Access details and submission instructions come with your grant decision. Interim reports also use the monitoring tool and interim financial evidence includes an expenditure list. Joint projects use the same report showing each partner's results, submitted by every partner.

Grants of €25,000 or less are paid in one instalment after the final spending evidence is submitted. Larger grants normally retain 20% until it has been submitted and checked. This retention does not apply to climate coordination, first and follow-on climate management, or focused/integrated-plan implementation management.