For project developers

EU funding, sorted by activity.

Which EU programme fits your CRCF activity, and which one does not. We are not advisers, we take no fee and we do not broker applications. This page exists because the funding is published separately from the framework, so nobody tells a peatland project that the Innovation Fund is not its route.

All figures checked against primary sources on 2 October 2026.

Start here: two separate worlds

EU money for carbon removal does not come from one pot. One set of programmes funds plant, equipment and the companies building them. The other funds land management. Different rules, different applicants, different orders of magnitude. Most wasted effort comes from applying to the wrong one.

20 of 37

Technology and plant

DACCS, BioCCS, biochar, storage in products. Innovation Fund and EIC Accelerator.

Money reaches the installation or the company. Track record exists.

17 of 37

Land management

Soil carbon, peatland rewetting, afforestation, forest management. LIFE and the CAP Strategic Plans.

Money reaches consortia and farmers. No EU programme is aimed at the unit developer.

Your activity	In the directory	Where to look	What it actually funds
DACCS, BioCCS	9 developers	Innovation Fund, EIC Accelerator	Capital cost of a facility, or the company building the technology
Biochar	8 developers	Innovation Fund SME call, EIC Accelerator	Pyrolysis plant, or the company scaling it
Storage in products, mineralisation	3 developers	EIC Accelerator, Innovation Fund	The process technology and its first industrial scale-up
Soil carbon, peatland rewetting	12 developers	LIFE, CAP Strategic Plans	Project consortia and payments to land managers, not the unit developer
Afforestation, forest management	5 developers	LIFE, CAP Strategic Plans, national schemes	As above, and largely decided nationally

Counts are live from the directory and link straight to that filter. If your activity is in the lower two rows, neither the Innovation Fund nor the EIC Accelerator is your programme. That is not a gap in this page, it is how the instruments are designed.

The four programmes

Innovation Fund

Five calls open December 2026

The largest pot and the only one with a track record in permanent removals. It funds the capital cost of building something, which is why it reaches installations rather than land.

Carbon removal is not a separate call, it is a scoring advantage. In the 2025 net-zero technologies call, the potential to deliver net carbon removals was worth a bonus point in the evaluation, and a project coordinated and implemented by an SME was worth a second one. The pilots topic names net carbon removal technology as exactly what it is looking for. So a removal project is not squeezing into a scheme built for something else.

The hard filter is size. Nothing below €2.5 million capital expenditure was eligible under any topic. Above that the call splits by size, and the money is not spread evenly.

Topic, 2025 call	Capital expenditure	Budget
General, large scale	above €100 million	€1.2 billion
General, medium scale	€20 to 100 million	€300 million
General, small scale	€2.5 to 20 million	€100 million
Clean tech manufacturing	above €2.5 million	€1 billion
Pilots	above €2.5 million	€300 million

Figures are from the 2025 call document, which opened in December 2025, closed in April 2026 and drew 358 applications. The December 2026 round will have its own document and its own numbers. Treat this as the shape of the thing, not as next year's terms.

Minimum: €2.5 million CAPEX
Removal bonus: 1 point
SME bonus: 1 point
Proven case: €180 million

Beccs Stockholm, listed in our directory, holds an Innovation Fund grant of €180 million and is expected to avoid around seven million tonnes of CO₂ over its first ten years.

The SME call is the one to watch, and it is now documented. Budget €200 million, for small-scale projects with capital expenditure between €2.5 and 20 million. It is published in December 2026 and runs in two rounds, closing at the end of March 2027 and again at the end of September 2027. The Commission describes it as deliberately lighter: less paperwork, simplified greenhouse gas calculations, and tolerance for projects that carry more risk than the other Innovation Fund calls take on.

That range is where most biochar and plant-based removal operators actually sit, and it is the first EU call built for them rather than for industrial installations. A webinar for applicants runs on 13 October 2026, see our events page.

The other four December calls are net-zero technologies, a new maritime call, the second heat auction and the fourth hydrogen auction. Our reading, not a sourced statement: only the net-zero technologies call is relevant for carbon removal besides the SME call, going by the titles. Those call documents are not out yet.

EIC Accelerator

CDR call announced, not published

This funds companies, not projects, and that distinction decides whether it is worth your time. An applicant is a single start-up or SME, or a small mid-cap up to 499 employees for the investment part only. A project developer without a company behind the technology is not the addressee.

The readiness level matters as much as the money. Levels 6 to 8 mean demonstration: not research, and not a product already selling at scale.

Grant: up to €2.5 million
Equity: €1 to 10 million
Readiness: TRL 6 to 8
Duration: 24 months

At its Buyers Club webinar on 10 September 2026, DG CLIMA announced a first EIC call dedicated to carbon removal, covering existing CRCF methodologies and beyond, with €50 million in total for start-ups and SMEs. It was not on the EIC site when we checked: the five EIC Accelerator Challenges for 2026 are advanced materials, fusion, biotech for agricultural soils, critical raw materials and deep tech for climate adaptation. Carbon removal is not among them. Treat this call as expected, not as open.

LIFE

Consortia, not developers

LIFE has put more than €150 million into more than 30 projects supporting carbon farming, carbon sequestration and carbon credits since 2021, including peatland restoration and forest management. The beneficiary is a project consortium, typically with research and public partners, not a company selling units.

It funds demonstration and replication. That suits a project that wants to prove a method, not one that wants to finance issuance.

Since 2021: €150 million +
Projects: 30 +
Fits: Peatland, forestry, soil

CAP Strategic Plans

National, 28 sets of rules

Eco-schemes and rural development measures pay land managers. There are 28 approved plans for 2023 to 2027, so the rules are national rather than European, and they change with the next CAP period from 2028. The money reaches the farmer, not the developer.

For a carbon farming developer this is less a funding route than a fact about your farmers' existing income, and it leads straight to the question below.

The uncomfortable part, and it is unresolved. Where a farmer already receives an eco-scheme payment for a practice, and a carbon farming project sells units for the same practice, the question of additionality and double funding arises. The CRCF requires additionality. The CAP pays for practices. How the two sit together is not settled in a way we can point to, and any developer working on mineral soils or peatland should expect the question in due diligence rather than be surprised by it.

This is our reading, flagged as such, not a sourced conclusion. If you have a primary source that settles it, tell us and we will correct this page.

Who else buys removals

Besides grants, some public and private buyers run tenders. They pay per tonne delivered rather than for the plant, and they decide who scales. For a developer the question is not only whether you can win, but whether the same tonnes can also become CRCF units.

Buyer	What it buys	Size	Status	For CRCF
Sweden, Energy Agency	Biogenic CO2 stored, reverse auction	Round 1: just over SEK 20 billion over up to 15 years. Round 2: SEK 10 billion	Round 1 won by Stockholm Exergi, 14 February 2025. Round 2 opened 17 December 2025	Facilities in Sweden, so in scope. The aid is reduced by revenue from voluntary removal certificates
Denmark, NECCS Fund	Biogenic or atmospheric CO2 stored	DKK 2.5 billion over 8 years	Concluded 17 April 2024: BioCirc, Bioman, Carbon Capture Scotland	One winner sits in Scotland, outside the EU. Its tonnes cannot become CRCF units
Denmark, CCUS Fund	Fossil and biogenic CO2 captured and stored	Up to DKK 815 million a year	First award to Ørsted, 15 May 2023, 430,000 tonnes a year from 2026	Only the biogenic part can count as a removal
EU, ETS Article 9c	Permanent removals certified under the CRCF, BioCCS and DACCS	250 million allowances, 2031 to 2040	Commission proposal of 17 July 2026, not adopted	Biochar is left out of the proposal
EU Buyers' Club, pilot	Permanent removals certified under the CRCF	Two to five projects	Target end of 2026	Needs a recognised scheme first, none is yet
Frontier	Durable removals, offtakes	About USD 10 to 50 million per offtake	Applications on a rolling basis	Worldwide, not tied to the CRCF

Two things stand out. National programmes and the CRCF cover different ground: Denmark's fund pays for removals the CRCF could never certify. And the money stacks. Stockholm Exergi combines the Swedish auction, EUR 180 million from the Innovation Fund and an offtake with Microsoft, and Sweden nets voluntary revenue against its aid. If you plan to sell units as well as take public money, read that rule before you price.

Sources: Swedish Energy Agency, award of 14 February 2025 and second call of 17 December 2025; Danish Energy Agency, CCS tenders page; Frontier, request for offtake proposals; DG CLIMA, Buyers' Club webinar slides of 10 September 2026. Denmark's larger CCS Fund, tendered since October 2024, is left out because its award is not confirmed on the agency's page. Checked 4 October 2026.

What to do next

If you build plant or technology

Decide which instrument you are. An installation applies to the Innovation Fund, a company to the EIC. Both at once is rarely the right answer.
Watch December. The Innovation Fund calls open then and the EIC carbon removal call is expected in the same quarter. Both sit on our events page.
Check your readiness level honestly before writing anything for the EIC. Below 6 or above 8 is a rejection you can predict.

If you work on land

Stop looking at the Innovation Fund. It is not for you, and the cost of an application is real.
Your nearer milestone is regulatory, not financial. The carbon farming methodologies were adopted on 10 July 2026 and are not yet in force, and nothing can be certified until they are. See CRCF explained.
Prepare an answer on eco-scheme overlap before a buyer asks for one.

Limits and sources

No national programmes. There are 27 sets of them and we cannot keep them current honestly.
No advice on applications, and no fee from anyone. See About.
No private finance. Offtake agreements are a separate route, and the EU Buyers' Club is where public funding and private demand are meant to meet.

Checked 2 October 2026. DG CLIMA, EU CRCF Buyers Club webinar slides of 10 September 2026, CC BY 4.0, on the event page. Innovation Fund calls. EIC Accelerator and its Challenges 2026. CINEA on Beccs Stockholm. CINEA on LIFE and carbon farming. Eco-schemes.