European Structural and Investment Funds: preparing for closure – best practice guide and key deadlines

Final claim

All final claims must be submitted to the Managing Authority by 31 January 2024 without exception. However, Lead Partners are strongly encouraged to submit their final claims as soon as possible i.e. no later than 1 month after the financial end date of the operation. Please view the final section of this guidance for key closure deadlines.

In order to facilitate this, Lead Partners are reminded that claims should be submitted regularly. Claim information can be uploaded to EUMIS even when there is a submitted claim on the system. We would advise Lead Partners to do these uploads therefore allowing the next claim to be submitted as soon as a current claim is paid.

The final claim is the last opportunity to claim remaining funds from the Managing Authority. You must input the total remaining expenditure to be claimed, the approved income figure and the approved match funding. You must also input the achievements, outputs and results within your final claim. In some cases, results may not be achieved in time to report these in the final claim, in this case, contact should be made with your Portfolio and Compliance Manager. It should be noted however, that the last possible date to input results is 31 March 2024.

The final claim must provide the details of the operation progress and achievements to date, we would refer you to the under-performance annex of the offer of grant letter (and any subsequent variation of grant letters which amend the offer of grant) for further details on the targets set for the operation and the under-performance penalties.

Only expenditure which has already been incurred and defrayed (paid) can be claimed. “Paid” is defined as when a cheque has been cashed or a payment transaction has been cleared from the organisations bank account.

Activity that has taken place after the approved physical completion date is not eligible, and expenditure defrayed after the approved financial completion date is not eligible.

Please note that all expenditure must be incurred and defrayed before the end of the programme period (i.e. 31 December 2023).

The following rules apply to the payment calculation of final claims:

• all final claims will be paid on a “need” basis which means that the total grant payable will be reduced if there is any change in the overall funding package which reduces the need for grant
• total grant payable will be reduced to reflect any under spend in relation to the operation
• in the event of a shortfall in income, the Lead Partner will need to provide additional funding from its own resources
• all income details must be provided/confirmed before final claim will be paid
• the maximum amount of grant payable is worked out as the total expenditure claimed by the Lead Partner, minus confirmed/approved match funding and approved income. Any irregular funds identified throughout the operation lifecycle will also be deducted, if not already done so
• Lead Partners should note that post final claim payment, audit work and a closure compliance review will still be required, these may identify irregular funds which must be repaid to the Managing Authority.

Lead Partners must ensure that they respond and address all the outstanding actions raised by the Managing Authority timeously to allow the final claim to be paid by the 20 June 2024 deadline. Please see the final section of this guidance for key closure deadlines.