Council gives green light to the EU’s annual budget for 2026
Today, the Council formally adopted the EU’s budget for 2026. This budget is the result of negotiations with the European Parliament that lead to an agreement on 15 November 2025.
The total commitments are set at €192.8 billion and the total payments at €190.1 billion.
“Today, we took the final step in ensuring a strong and resilient EU budget that enable us to continue delivering on our common EU priorities next year. Addressing priorities such as defence, migration, competitiveness and preparedness, this budget allows us to respond decisively to the needs of European citizens. At the same time, we’ve built in flexibility to allow us to deal with unfolding crises.”
– Nicolai Wammen, minister of finance of Denmark and chief Council negotiator for the 2026 EU budget
This year, €715.7 million has been kept available as a margin under the expenditure ceilings of the current MFF’s commitments, allowing the EU to react to unforeseen circumstances.
Commitments are legally-binding promises to spend money on activities that are implemented over several financial years.
Payments cover expenditure arising from commitments entered into the EU budget during the current or preceding financial years.
Next steps
The budget will be finally approved once adopted also by the European Parliament. This adoption is expected to take place on 26 November.
Background
This is the sixth annual budget under the EU’s long-term budget, the multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2021-2027. The 2025 budget is complemented by actions to support the COVID-19 recovery under NextGenerationEU, the EU’s plan to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
