EU funding opportunities for local public transport

This interactive webpage is a new UITP tool to support all our members, transport professionals and decision-makers engaged in shaping the post-pandemic mobility landscape. The webpage offers all useful information on selected EU funds and financing instruments available for the local public transport sector in Europe. This webpage will be regularly updated to reflect the most up-to-date information and funding streams.

No time to dive into our 2022 Policy Paper on EU Funds & Financing? No worries, this website has been designed especially for you! Feel like chatting with us on any other EU-funds related topic? Just send a message at [email protected] and we will surely take it over from there.

After a brief overview on EU financing architecture, our interactive table will provide you more details about selected EU funding or financing opportunities. Just click on your Fund of choice to get more information.

Enjoy your browsing journey!

The EU financing architecture for local mobility and urban transport in the period 2021-2027 (Recovery Plan for Europe) rests upon two central pillars. 

Firstly, the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027 (€1.2 trillion) is a “traditional” EU budget with financing based on EU own resources. The Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) is the financial planning tool of the EU. It gives an overview of the EU’s budget priorities from a budgetary perspective, with a primary objective being to ensure the orderly development of expenditures in line with EU priorities, and within the limits of the EU resource base.

Secondly, the Next Generation EU 2021-2023 (€807 billion) is a temporary recovery instrument with financing based on periodical borrowings on capital markets.

Regarding the EU financing typology, there are three main strands of support for local mobility and urban transport, with the two last strands representing reimbursable (repayable) forms of financing, often in the form of debt instruments such as loans:

• EU grants (non-repayable forms of funding);
• EU financial instruments;
• European Investment Bank (EIB) financial instruments.

UITP has recently published a research report dedicated to EU investments in the local public transport sector under the recently completed Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020. Our research project aimed at mapping out all investments and spendings channelled to urban, local, and regional passenger transport. This first of its kind report provides an in-dept analysis of publicly available data related to all passenger transport projects co-financed by the EU between 2014-2020, with the main objective to trace and understand the financing flows made for the local public transport sector.

Being concerned by overgeneralisations related to financing ‘transport’ or ‘sustainable mobility’, we decided to undertake this research to perform a reality check and put into spotlight all investments – either by grants or lending – made in the urban, local and regional passenger transport ecosystem. This ‘reality-check’ report is therefore critical both to better understand the evolution of EU financial support for the local public transport, but also to better prepare evidence-based advocacy actions related to the next MFF post-2027.

Discover the Report (members-only!)

• Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF)
• European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIFs)
• INTERREG Programme
• Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Transport
• Digital Europe
• LIFE Programme
• InvestEU Fund
• European Investment Bank instruments
• Horizon Europe
• Recovery Assistance for Cohesion and the Territories of Europe
• Modernisation Fund