EIC defence call

Applicant types

SME, Startup, Other

Purpose

Research and innovation

R&D relevance

3 of 3

Poland eligible

Yes

Country limit

EU Member States, Ukraine and EEA countries associated to Horizon Europe; third-country control restrictions apply.

Region

Any

Consortium

Single applicant

Readiness level (TRL)

—

Topics

• Defence technologies
• Strategic defence capabilities

Machine-classified from the call text; check eligibility at the source. 23 Oct 2026

Typed facts extracted from the source documents by Scindu's grant-data review. Each value keeps its own conditions. Unknown means unstated, not zero or unlimited.

Applicant restriction

Entities established in the Union, Ukraine or an associated EEA country but directly or indirectly controlled by other third countries or their legal entities are generally excluded.

Exception requires appropriate guarantees available to and approved by the Commission under the national procedures of the applicant’s establishment state. The source allows a later two-week submission window in specified interview/due-diligence cases.

Applicant type

A single company classified as an SME or small mid-cap (up to 499 employees) may apply. An investor may submit on behalf of an eligible SME/small mid-cap where prior agreement exists; the investment agreement is signed with the selected company.

The company may have an investment holding entity, which must also be established in a listed eligible territory. General Annex 2 conditions and safeguards also apply.

Application restriction

Applications may be submitted at any time until 28 October 2026; evaluation is organised in a single batch.

Application restriction

From 1 April 2026, after three unsuccessful submissions of the same/improved proposal by the same legal entity to EIC STEP Scale Up or STEP Defence, the entity may not apply again to either call under Horizon Europe.

Counts unsuccessful submissions at any stage including eligibility and interview; source expects feedback incorporation and significant improvements before reapplication.

Application restriction

Submission must include a business plan (max 50 pages), pitch deck (max 15 pages), single-investor pre-commitment, financial plan, FTO analysis or a note of at most 2 pages when the analysis is unavailable; when FTO is not relevant (e.g. software), provide a simple statement; key personnel CVs; and a third-country-control self-assessment, with a guarantee expected if direct or indirect control is found.

If submitting classified support, applicants must arrange delivery with EISMEA at least 30 working days before the deadline; classified information must not be uploaded online.

Eligible geography

Applicant company must be established in the Union, Ukraine, or an EEA member associated to Horizon Europe.

A qualifying investment holding entity must also be established in a Member State, Ukraine, or an associated EEA country; third-country-control restrictions and guarantees may apply.

Eligible project scope

Proposed product, technology or service must have a primary defence application and fall within one of the listed defence strategic technology areas; predominantly civilian or dual-use applications should use the general EIC STEP Scale Up call.

Other condition

Innovation must be critical by either bringing an innovative, emerging and cutting-edge element with significant economic potential to the internal market, or contributing to reducing or preventing strategic dependencies of the Union.

Other condition

Additional ethics requirements concern international humanitarian law and AI-based systems; AI-enabled weapon-system functions must preserve meaningful human control.

Other condition

Requested investment co-invests in a target funding round of EUR 50–150 million or more, at least three to five times the requested EIC contribution.

Other condition

Support is equity-only investment managed by the EIC Fund; applicants receive no grant component.

Other condition

Applicant must demonstrate an equity pre-commitment from a single qualified investor, subject to KYC by the EIC Fund or EIF.

Pre-commitment is non-legally binding and assessed at proposal evaluation; investor may be existing and need not lead the round. A high-risk investor can exceptionally qualify when duly justified under the source’s economic-security wording.

Other condition

Single investor’s equity pre-commitment must be at least 20% of the target round, and that threshold portion must be wholly uninvested on the pre-commitment-letter date. Syndicated commitments are ineligible if no individual entity reaches 20%.

The 20% must be reached fully through equity; quasi-equity does not count.

Indicative budget

€100,000,000

Topic budget as stated in the portal's budget table. Lump-sum and per-project limits are in the call conditions.

Call allocation

€100,000,000

Indicative 2026 component of the multi-year call allocation, not a per-project cap; the 2027 component is conditional on adoption of the 2027 Work Programme.

Project investment, maximum

€30,000,000

Maximum requested equity-only investment per applicant, not a grant; final case-specific terms are negotiated after due diligence.

Project investment, minimum

€10,000,000

Minimum requested equity-only investment per applicant, not a grant; final case-specific terms are negotiated after due diligence.

• European Innovation Council (EIC) Work Programme 2026, current amended version C(2026) 4080

  eic.ec.europa.eu

Opens

30 Jun 2026

Deadline model

Single-stage

Programme

Horizon Europe · 2021 - 2027

Call

HORIZON-EIC-2026-STEP-DEFENCE-01 · EIC STEP Scale Up Defence

Types of action

HORIZON EIC Equity Only

Keywords

• STEP-Defence

Source

ec.europa.eu

Checked

23 Oct 2026

Portal updated

1 Jul 2026

Review status

Partial review

Reviewed

22 Oct 2026