Internal Security Fund (ISF) 2021-2027: Who Can Apply, Under Which Rules, and How Much the Union Pays
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1 live call(s) in this edition
| Call | Title | Deadline | Window |
|---|---|---|---|
| ISF-2026-TF2-AG-CYBER-DIGITAL | Digital Investigations | 15 Dec 2026 | Still open |
What's inside
- Internal Security Fund (ISF) 2021-2027: Who Can Apply, Under Which Rules, and How Much the Union Pays
- The answer first
- What the Fund is and how its money is split
- Who participates and who does not
- Who is eligible under direct management
- What a consortium must look like
- How much the Union pays
- How the procedure runs and where applications fail
- Why critical-entity operators are now inside the perimeter
- Before you commit bid resources
- Decision points
- What this analysis could not verify
Who it's for
Bid and capture teams sizing an application; counsel and compliance checking establishment, ownership-and-control and consortium rules; investors and analysts who need the access conditions verified against the legal text, not summarised from news.
The Internal Security Fund (ISF) is the EU's instrument for police cooperation, the fight against terrorism and serious and organised crime, and the protection of critical infrastructure and public spaces. This eligibility core sets out the structural rules that do not change between calls. It is built on Regulation (EU) 2021/1149, the eighth revised thematic facility work programme (Commission Implementing Decision C(2025) 8142), the 2026 call documents on organised crime and on critical entities' resilience, and Directive (EU) 2022/2557. It explains the EUR 1 931 000 000 envelope and its split between Member State programmes (EUR 1 352 000 000) and the thematic facility (EUR 579 000 000); which countries take part (Denmark does not; Ireland does); who is eligible under direct management (legal entities in a Member State or linked OCT, Union-law bodies, relevant international organisations; not natural persons); how third-country entities and international organisations are treated; the consortium rules actually imposed by current call documents, including coordinator restrictions by legal type; the co-financing architecture of Article 12 (75 per cent ceiling, 90 per cent for Annex IV categories including critical infrastructure, 100 per cent for emergency assistance and operating support) against the 90 per cent rate in current calls; the two-step evaluation with a Relevance threshold of 21/30 and an overall pass mark of 70/100; the registration, validation and facility-security-clearance preconditions; and why the CER Directive's identification deadline of 17 July 2026 brings critical-entity operators into the ISF perimeter. It closes with six decision points and an explicit list of what could not be verified. Live calls, deadlines and budgets are appended by the platform.
What changed
Live data refreshed; no call-level changes. Part A revised (edition 2).
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