An annual budget is one part of the Union's long-term budget, which provides the limits for spending for at least five years. This interactive chart tracks voted appropriations for the expenditure side of the budget.
Scroll to the bottom of the page for detailed instructions on how to use the chart and download the data. You can also access the documents about the annual budget (adoption, implementation, and accounting and reporting) here. Furthermore, you can download a report summarising the whole budgetary procedure for a given year, which includes descriptions of what happened during that year.
The amounts are for presentation purposes only. Any formal reference to budgetary information should be to official budget documents and reports.
For data related to the 2014-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework, see EU annual budget lifecycle 2014-2020.
How to use
The financial data we store is large and has many levels of aggregation, so we have provided three ways (tabs) to look at it:
- information by political categories (‘OFF MAIN’),
- information by budget line (‘OFF LBL’) and
- information by budget line only looking at lines with amounts in reserve (‘OFF RES’).
For each of them, you can use the filters (e.g. year) to select one or multiple values to display. Your current selection is displayed in the blue bar: click on it to modify it, or on the "x" to remove it. Depending on your current selection, not all options in the filter may be available: if it is not possible to select a value, it will appear in a dark grey background.
Under each tab, you can select one of the following views: combined (commitment and payment appropriations), commitment appropriations only, or payment appropriations only.
You can download the data from your current selection using the ‘Download the selected data’ button. You can also download the entire dataset (OFF MAIN, OFF LBL, OFF RES).
Aggregated information (‘OFF MAIN’): information about headings, sub-headings, clusters, and programmes. The political categories are the highest level of aggregation the Commission uses. If you want to compare budget phases, then select multiple budget phases using the ‘Budget phase’ filter within the same financial year. You can make a similar comparison across financial years.
Information by budget line (‘OFF LBL’): information about the total appropriations by budget line, which includes the amount in reserve. In this tab you can also display the budget lines by section, another way in which they are grouped (e.g. Commission, Parliament, Council), through the ‘Section’ filter. You can then go into further detail by title, chapter, article, and item.
Information by budget line (lines with reserves only) (‘OFF RES’): information about the amount in reserve by budget line - only budget lines that have such an amount at one point in the long-term budget. A budget line can receive amounts in reserve, which are budgeted, but cannot be used, unless something happens (e.g. if the basic act has not been adopted). The reserve amount is part of the overall amount of a budget line that you can see in ‘OFF LBL’.
Year: the financial year in the 2021-2027 long-term budget
Budget phase: The interactive chart presents ten possible budget phases for each year (e.g. the draft budget, the Council’s position, amending letters, the Parliament’s position, the second draft budget, the adopted budget, and the budget including amending budgets). This is an abstract representation of the annual budgetary procedure to facilitate navigation. If a budget phase is not displayed, then it does not apply to the selected year.
Budget section: the individual budgets of the Union’s institutions that taken together make the total EU budget. For example, the budget the Commission is responsible for is the Commission’s section of the budget, or section III. This is where you will find most programmes, agencies, and actions.
Budget line: the name and/or code of an item, article, chapter, or title, depending on the level at which it is considered.
Heading: the highest level of the nomenclature, which brings together policy clusters, i.e. specific policy areas or policy objectives into one thematic area. They express the nature or purpose of the expenditure concerned.
Sub-heading: some headings are further broken down into sub-headings, which emphasise a political priority that stands out from a budgetary point of view.
Cluster/title: corresponds to a policy area (also referred to as a policy cluster).
Programme: general term to classify types of activities (spending programmes, prerogatives of the Commission, pilot project and preparatory actions etc.)
Chapter: corresponds to a programme or an activity. The first chapter "01" in a title always covers support administrative expenditure to the policy area.
Article: corresponds to a general objective within a programme or purpose.
Item: corresponds to a specific objective.
Example: In the official nomenclature, a budget line can have between 2 and 8 digits:
- Single Market, Research and Innovation (heading 1)
- There is no sub-heading in heading 1.
- 01 (Title or cluster) Research and Innovation
- 01 02 (Chapter) Horizon Europe
- 01 02 02 (Article) Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness (Pillar II)
- 01 02 02 41 (Item) Cluster Digital, Industry and Space — High-Performance Computing joint undertaking (EuroHPC)
- 01 02 02 (Article) Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness (Pillar II)
- 01 02 (Chapter) Horizon Europe
- 01 (Title or cluster) Research and Innovation
- There is no sub-heading in heading 1.
Download
You can download the data from your current selection using the ‘Download the selected data’ button. You can also download the entire dataset (OFF MAIN, OFF LBL, OFF RES) below.
Entire dataset of the Annual Budget Lifecycle of the MFF 2021 - 2027 (OFF MAIN, OFF LBL, OFF RES).
Furthermore, you can download a report summarising the whole budgetary procedure for a given year, like for example Teletab 2021.
Information about the annual budget lifecycle
The lifecycle of the annual EU budget is approximately three years. The budgetary institutions (European Commission, European Parliament, and Council) prepare, discuss, and adopt the annual budget (annual budget procedure) in the financial year n-1. Then, the budget will be implemented in year n. It could also be amendeded during the financial year (n). During year n+1, it is assessed.
The amounts refer to voted commitment and payment appropriations by financial year. They are expressed in million euros in OFF MAIN, and at euro level in OFF LBL and OFF RES.
For the previous programming period, please visit this website.