Detection of illicit trade

The grant aims to strengthen and improve the technical capacity of beneficiaries, primarily customs authorities, to detect suspicious movements of goods and verify such movements. This includes the purchase and maintenance of equipment and IT tools for detecting smuggled and counterfeited goods, such as cigarettes and tobacco, imported into the EU to evade VAT, customs duties, and/or excise taxes. Specialised training for staff operating these tools is also required. Effectiveness will be measured by increases in IT system features, number of verifications, and successful detections ('hits') following the adoption of new equipment.

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Agency	EUAF (EU)
Region	EU
Country	N/A
Legal form	Government organization, Other
Start date	17 Mar 2026
End date	7 May 2026
Budget	10,800,000 EUR for 2026 (shared budget line for multiple topics under the programme; not necessarily exclusive to this topic)

Grant application conditions

Admissibility	Proposal page limit and layout as described in section 5 of the call document and in Part B of the Application Form.
Eligible Countries	Eligibility as described in section 6 of the call document.
Other Eligibility	Additional eligibility conditions described in section 6 of the call document.
Financial and Operational Capacity	Financial and operational capacity and exclusions described in section 7 of the call document.
Evaluation and Award	Submission and evaluation process as described in section 8 of the call document and the Online Manual. Award criteria, scoring and thresholds described in section 9 of the call document. Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement described in section 4 of the call document.
Legal and Financial Set-up	Legal and financial set-up of the grants described in section 10 of the call document.
Training	Specialised training for staff to operate purchased equipment and IT tools must be included as part of the action.
Documentation	https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/EUAF-2026-TA-04

Eligible expenses

Evaluation criteria

Business exclusions

Application process

Application requirements