LIFE Nature and Biodiversity grants
Grants for organisations restoring habitats and protecting wild species, including carbon-rich ecosystems and flood and drought resilience; the 2026 round is closed.
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This LIFE topic funds conservation and restoration of wild species and natural or semi-natural habitats. Climate-relevant priorities include restoring degraded carbon-rich ecosystems, returning forests towards their natural structure and functioning, and restoring rivers and wetlands to reduce natural-disaster impacts. Ecosystem-based land and water management can improve resilience to floods and droughts. Sustainable forest management for climate adaptation is also a priority.
Under the 2026 rules, the grant reimburses eligible project costs, normally up to 60%. You can request 75% only if the project exclusively targets qualifying habitats or species and every activity clearly benefits them. Qualifying targets are priority habitats or species listed under the EU Habitats Directive; birds on the EU priority-for-funding list; Directive-listed habitats or species assessed as unfavourable-bad and declining in both the latest EU and national biogeographical assessments; non-bird species or habitats assessed as endangered or worse in the latest European red lists; or, where European lists do not cover the territory, targets assessed as endangered or worse in the latest global IUCN lists. Newly described threatened species not yet assessed in an EU or global IUCN red list can qualify exceptionally with peer-reviewed scientific evidence. These are conservation-status assessments and official lists used to demonstrate the target's priority or extinction risk in the proposal. If a species has both a biogeographical conservation-status assessment and a European red-list assessment, the most recent assessment determines whether it meets the higher-rate conditions.
Eligible cost categories include staff, subcontracting, travel, goods, works and services. The grant combines actual eligible costs with specified unit-cost and flat-rate elements; it is not a payment of the proposed budget regardless of spending. Grant parameters are fixed in the agreement and the award may be lower than requested. Projects requesting more than €5 million must give particularly convincing evidence of exceptional conservation impact and value for money. The maximum duration is 120 months, with justified extensions possible by amendment.
Eligibility
Public or private legal entities can apply from EU countries, including their overseas countries and territories, or Iceland, Moldova, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Ukraine. The coordinator must be based in an eligible country. Serbia is negotiating association: its entities may apply, but grant signature requires an agreement in force by the end of selection that covers this programme part and the call year. Norway and Liechtenstein do not participate.
Individuals cannot apply except sole traders whose business has no separate legal personality. International organisations are eligible without the country-location restriction. Other-country entities can receive funding exceptionally when the granting authority finds their participation essential. Entities without legal personality can participate exceptionally if their representatives can assume legal obligations and provide equivalent protection of EU financial interests. EU bodies cannot join the consortium except the European Commission Joint Research Centre.
Activities normally take place in eligible countries. Work elsewhere must be necessary for EU environmental or climate objectives and for the effectiveness of work in eligible countries.
Your project must define specific, measurable biodiversity outcomes, and you need sufficient finances, staff, expertise and experience to deliver it and contribute your share. EU exclusion decisions, insolvency, tax or social-security breaches, serious misconduct, fraud and significant failures on earlier EU contracts can prevent participation. EU sanctions and conditionality restrictions apply; Hungarian public-interest trusts established under Act IX of 2021 and entities they maintain cannot take funded roles.
The country rules also exclude entities covered by the EU's Israeli territorial eligibility restrictions in any capacity. Covered Israeli companies, non-profits and regional or local public bodies must have a registered physical address within Israel's pre-1967 borders. National public authorities are exempt from that establishment rule but must give a communication address within those borders. Natural persons are exempt from the territorial rules; LIFE's separate sole-trader limitation still applies.
Funded activities of covered Israeli legal entities, including national authorities, must not 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 and/or promoting the Middle East peace process in line with EU policy. Unrelated activities there do not themselves exclude an entity from this grant route. Meeting these territorial rules does not establish eligibility for exceptional third-country funding.
Maintain the ecological effects for at least 20 years after the project ends. Habitat restoration and management investments need protection sufficient to sustain their benefits. Land acquisition and habitat restoration require the most appropriate legal protection. Pressure-reduction work on buffer land, such as blocking drainage ditches, requires a long-term agreement ensuring pressures are irreversibly reduced. Agreements normally cover at least 20 years; shorter periods need convincing justification and evidence of lasting results. If an agreement is impossible, provide evidence that appropriate land-use planning secures the investment.
Natura 2000 is the EU network of protected sites. Actions targeting birds listed in Annex I of the Birds Directive or occurring migratory birds should take place in the relevant designated bird-protection sites. Actions targeting habitats or species covered by the Habitats Directive should take place in their relevant designated sites. Target habitats and species must appear in the site’s official species/habitat record. If a target is present but missing from the record, provide the competent authority's commitment to update it by project completion, or confirmation that an update was already sent. Area-based work outside the network targeting habitats or species in Annexes I or II of the Habitats Directive, or birds in Annex I of the Birds Directive, must improve the network’s ecological connectivity, for example by allowing migration or avoiding genetic isolation. Guarantee lasting benefits through legal protection or appropriate long-term agreements; when those are impossible, justify this thoroughly and demonstrate appropriate land-use planning.
If site designation, boundary changes, record updates or strategic plans are necessary, obtain a formal authority commitment to complete the required adoption or update before the project ends and include achievable milestones. Otherwise related costs could be ineligible. In associated countries or overseas territories without Natura 2000, area-based work needs already legally protected sites or the Emerald Network, the protected-area network used there; if Emerald designation is pending, a signed authority commitment must secure designation by project completion. Land purchase is not allowed in countries outside the EU.
The infrastructure owner should join the project partnership. If the owner cannot join the partnership, a limited investment can exceptionally proceed if the owner commits to conservation use for at least 20 years. Infrastructure normally belongs inside Natura 2000. Outside it, secure lasting benefits and demonstrate that it serves the conservation objectives of targeted Natura 2000 sites, is indispensable for migration connectivity, or supports conservation away from the natural habitat with reintroduction during the project. Without planned reintroduction, justify why this off-site conservation is the only possible or useful approach for the species at present.
Projects forming part of green or blue infrastructure must meet all three tests: conserve or enhance multiple benefits provided by ecosystems (ecosystem services) at significant scale; improve the condition of species or habitats covered by EU nature legislation and their ecosystems; and cross administrative boundaries, involve at least two Member States or a Member State and a neighbouring country, or implement a national green-infrastructure strategy or restoration framework.
Existing recurring habitat management is excluded. New or additional recurring work needs a justification for LIFE funding and a credible plan to finance continuation after the grant. A substantial change in frequency or intensity is not treated as existing ongoing work. If continuation is not assured at final payment, related costs are ineligible. Costs for measures compensating environmental damage may be excluded because the responsible polluter must bear the costs.
You cannot pass grant funding on to third parties. Completed projects are rejected; already-started projects are assessed case by case, with no reimbursement for work before the permitted project start/submission date. Except for EU Synergies actions, the same action cannot receive two EU grants and no cost can be declared twice. An EU operating grant can coexist only when the project falls outside its work programme and accounting separates the costs. Grants cannot create a profit; for-profit applicants must declare revenues, and any surplus reduces the final grant.
A follow-on LIFE project must explain why another phase is needed, how it complements previous results and how further continuation will use other resources. Show how the proposal builds on or differs from similar funded LIFE projects and coordinates with those still running.
How to apply
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- 2026 Nature and Biodiversity topic LIFE-2026-SAP-NAT-NATURE. Closed.
The 2026 Nature round is closed. Check CINEA's official topic page for call status and use the Nature-specific rules for the documented round.
For the documented 2026 process, applicants created EU Login accounts and registered their organisations in the Participant Register to obtain a participant identification code (PIC). Proposals went through the Funding & Tenders Portal's topic submission system using its mandatory forms, with a detailed budget table and participant information. Paper applications were not accepted. The portal closed at the deadline; a confirmation email established that submission had succeeded.