In this regard, we invite you to read carefully the new Annex 2a of the Grant agreement on unit costs and contributions, the Annotated Grant Agreement (AGA) (in particular, page 24 point 6.1b, page 27 point 3 and pages 59-60 point 2) and to consult the Commission Decision that authorised the use of unit costs for travel, accommodation and subsistence costs under the new multi-annual financial framework 2021-2027.

The reason is that, from now on, for all calls of the CERV and justice programmes, you must use unit costs to claim travel, subsistence and accommodation costs in line with the method set out in this Annex 2a.

Unit costs are meant to simplify the way the travel, accommodation and subsistence costs are reported.

It is a major change in the identification of the amount to be claimed: no longer real costs, but a fixed amount.

It is also a substantial change in the record-keeping. You will not need to provide invoices, receipts, proofs of payment, etc. in case of checks and audits. Instead, you will have to be able to prove that a travel took place and was linked to the action.  Attendance lists are key documents to demonstrate that travel costs were necessary for the action and produced during the action duration. To be able to identify the unit cost of each travel, we recommend that you indicate, on signed attendance lists, the place of departure of the persons for whom you intend to claim travel costs.

Sometimes you claim unit costs for a travel, which is not linked to an activity for which an attendance list was signed. For instance, somebody of the staff attends an event organised by another organisation to present the project. Then, you must collect evidences to demonstrate that the person travelled and that it was linked to the project:  the agenda, the minutes or report of the event, the boarding pass, travel ticket, etc.

Please note that all references to the use of actual rates for travel, accommodation and subsistence in the grant agreements concern exclusively 3 cases, not covered by Annex 2a, presented on page 61 of the Annotated Grant Agreement, i.e.: travel between 50 and 300 km in a third country, travel between 50 and 300 km between a Member State and a third country, and land travel between 50 and 300km in Luxembourg, Cyprus or Malta. 

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Another novelty that we want to highlight is that costs for volunteers can be now declared under all the calls of the CERV programme as well as for the call on access to justice in the framework of the justice programme. This allows to recognise the contribution of volunteers in the project, i.e. when persons work for the project on a non-compulsory basis and without being paid.

Also volunteer costs need to be claimed as unit costs in line with the method set out in Annex 2a and fulfil the general eligibility conditions as defined in article 6.2-A5 of your GA (you can see also pages 47-48 and 82 point 1.4 of the Annotated Grant Agreement).

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The last important point on which we want to draw your attention is that, for all grants selected from the 2021 calls, there is a significant simplification for the calculation of staff costs: the number of productive days in a year is a fix number, namely 215 days/year. This amount corresponds to a full-time position.

For each calendar year, to calculate the daily rate of a person of the staff, you must divide the annual personal cost of the person by 215. Once the daily rate of a person has been calculated, you must multiply it by the number of day-equivalents declared for a person, as indicated on the timesheets.

More information is provided in section 2.1.4 of the Annotated Grant agreement.