In short
- Time records are dated and signed at least monthly, by the person and their supervisor (Article 20).
- Personnel costs are declared in day-equivalents; the daily rate is annual personnel cost ÷ 215.
- Hours convert by one method, applied consistently, rounded to the half-day once per period.
- No person may pass 215 day-equivalents a year, counted across all their EU grants.
- Keep the records for years after the balance is paid — five under the general agreement.
1Dated and signed monthly, by two people
The agreement does not prescribe a form for a time record. It prescribes who signs it and how often.
“dated and signed at least monthly by the person working for the action and their supervisor”
Annotated Grant Agreement, EU Funding Programmes 2021–2027, v2.0 (1 April 2025)
Two consequences. First, a record signed only by the supervisor — the usual “PM approval” in a time tracker — is half a record. Second, “at least monthly” is a deadline: a timesheet signed at the end of the reporting period for all its months is late by the agreement’s own measure, whatever it says.
This rule sits in the general part of the agreement, so it applies to every programme built on it: Horizon Europe, the Joint Undertakings, LIFE, the Digital Europe Programme and the rest. It is not a CINEA peculiarity, though LIFE beneficiaries often first meet it there.
2Day-equivalents, not hours
Personnel costs under the 2021–2027 agreements are declared per day, not per hour.
“The daily rate must be calculated as: {annual personnel costs for the person divided by 215}”
Annotated Grant Agreement, EU Funding Programmes 2021–2027, v2.0 (1 April 2025)
“day-equivalents worked on the action (rounded up or down to the nearest half-day)”
Annotated Grant Agreement, EU Funding Programmes 2021–2027, v2.0 (1 April 2025)
People may still record hours — most do — and the agreement allows the hours to be converted to day-equivalents per reporting period by one of three methods, applied consistently: eight hours is a day; the person’s contractual hours per day; or the organisation’s usual standard. The rounding to the nearest half-day happens once, on the period’s total.
The 1 720-hour, hourly-rate method belongs to the 2014–2020 agreements. If a grant was signed under Horizon 2020, its rules are different from everything on this page.
3The 215-day ceiling
“the total number of day-equivalents declared in EU grants, for a person for a year, cannot be higher than 215”
Annotated Grant Agreement, EU Funding Programmes 2021–2027, v2.0 (1 April 2025)
The ceiling is per person and across grants. A person on three Horizon Europe grants may be within each grant’s budget and over 215 in total. It is pro rata: for part-time work or a partial year, the maximum is the months times the working-time factor times 215 ÷ 12, rounded to the nearest half-day once. The agreement’s own example adds 53.75 for a quarter year to 215 for a full year and arrives at 269.
4What to keep, and how long
The time record must let an auditor trace a declared day-equivalent to a person, a day and a work package on this action, and the daily rate to the personnel cost in the accounts. Keep the signed records, the payroll figures behind the rate, and the working-time evidence behind a pro-rata ceiling.
The agreement sets the retention period in Article 20: records must be kept for a number of years after the payment of the balance — five under the general agreement. Check the Data Sheet of your own agreement for the figure that applies.
5In practice
A weekly grid people actually fill in, a month that is signed by the person once it is over and approved by their supervisor, a lock that freezes the figures, and corrections that keep the original: that is the shape Beneficia gives time records, and it is the shape Article 20 describes. A spreadsheet can carry the same words — our free template has them — but it cannot stop a figure from changing after the signature, or count the days against 215 across grants.