Horizon Europe timesheet requirements

The short answer

Personnel costs on a Horizon Europe grant must be backed by a record of the time each person worked on the project, made at least monthly and signed by the person and their supervisor. You can either sign a monthly declaration of the days worked on the project, which is the Commission's default, or use another reliable time-recording system.

Without those records the costs count as insufficiently substantiated: they are ineligible, they are rejected, and the grant may be reduced.

What the grant agreement says

Article 20.1(e) of the Model Grant Agreement sets the rule for personnel costs: "time worked for the beneficiary under the action must be supported by declarations signed monthly by the person and their supervisor, unless another reliable time-record system is in place; the granting authority may accept alternative evidence supporting the time worked for the action declared, if it considers that it offers an adequate level of assurance."

It applies to everyone who works on the project, full-time or part-time, and whether or not they work on it exclusively. The Annotated Grant Agreement marks this as new for the 2021 to 2027 programmes.

Two ways to record time

• A monthly declaration of the day-equivalents worked on the project, signed by the person and their supervisor. This is the default, and the Commission recommends it because it avoids converting hours into days. The declaration itself is not rounded: someone with an 8-hour day who spent 2 hours on the project in a month records 0.25 day-equivalents.
• Another reliable time-recording system, on paper or on a computer, that records at least all the time worked on the project, in days or in hours.

Pick one. If you keep both, for example weekly timesheets in hours and monthly declarations in days, they must agree. Where a check or audit finds significant differences, only the set of records showing fewer days is accepted.

What a reliable time record must show

• All the time the person worked on the project, in days or hours
• Recorded at least monthly
• Dated and signed by the person who did the work
• Dated and signed by their supervisor

In a computer-based system the signatures may be electronic. The Annotated Grant Agreement expects electronic identity data, such as a username and password, linked to the validation, with a documented and secure process for managing user rights and an auditable log of all electronic transactions.

Converting hours into day-equivalents

Horizon Europe costs staff by the day: a daily rate, the person's annual personnel costs divided by 215, multiplied by the day-equivalents worked on the project. If you record hours rather than days, you convert the total hours worked on the project in a reporting period into day-equivalents, once per person per reporting period, rounded to the nearest half day: 17.79 becomes 18, and 17.64 becomes 17.5.

You choose how many hours make a day-equivalent from three options:

Apply the chosen option consistently, at least across a group of staff on similar contracts. You can't pick the most favourable option person by person. You don't need a parallel record that converts each timesheet; the conversion is done when you report.

The 215-day ceiling

Across all EU grants, the day-equivalents declared for one person can't exceed 215 in a calendar year, or the pro-rata equivalent for part-time staff (215 multiplied by their working time factor). The ceiling exists to stop the same salary being funded twice, so it matters most for staff split across several EU projects.

How long to keep timesheets

Keep the records for the period in your grant agreement's Data Sheet (point 6). In general that is at least 5 years after the balance is paid, or 3 years for low-value grants of up to €60,000, and longer while an audit, investigation or litigation is still open.

Keep the originals. Digital and digitalised documents count as originals where national law allows it.

What happens without them

Article 20.2 is short: if a beneficiary breaches its record-keeping obligations, costs that are insufficiently substantiated are ineligible and rejected, and the grant may be reduced. The granting authority may accept alternative evidence of the time worked if it offers an adequate level of assurance, but that is at its discretion, so it is not a plan.

A checklist for research offices

• Choose monthly declarations or time records for each group of staff, and use only one
• Have every person sign every month, and their supervisor, usually the principal investigator, countersign and date it
• Record the time actually worked on the project. If hours are pre-filled from allocations, staff must correct them before they sign
• If you record hours, choose one conversion option and write it down
• Check that nobody goes over 215 day-equivalents a year across EU grants
• Keep the signed records for the period in your Data Sheet, normally 5 years after the balance payment
• If signatures are electronic, document how user rights are managed and keep the audit log

How UniTimesheet fits

UniTimesheet is a computer-based time-recording system, the second of the two ways above, built for staff on research grants:

• Each person gets a monthly timesheet with hours per project and week, worked out from their allocations and days off, which they correct to what they actually worked before they submit
• Each person uploads an image of their signature once. The approved PDF carries the staff member's signature dated the day they submitted, and the approving project owner's dated the day they approved
• Submitting and approving are done signed in, under permissions that follow the roles you define, and every change is kept in an audit log you can export
• Approved PDFs are locked when first made and kept for your retention period, counted from the timesheet's month: 7 years by default, and up to 30 if you need longer

Three things it leaves to you: it records hours, so you convert them to day-equivalents when you report; it does not check the 215-day ceiling; and it applies no certificate-based digital signature: the sign-off is made while signed in and kept in the audit log, the electronic signature the Annotated Grant Agreement describes, with a dated signature image on the PDF to show who signed. Check with your research office that this meets your institution's requirements.

• Start a free 30-day trial
• See how UniTimesheet timesheets work

Sources

This guide summarises the Commission's guidance. It is not legal or audit advice: your grant agreement and your research office have the final word.

• European Commission, EU Grants AGA: Annotated Grant Agreement, v2.0, 1 April 2025 (Article 6.2.A.1, pp. 49 to 53; Article 20, pp. 205 to 211)
• European Commission, Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement (Articles 6 and 20)