Abierto el plazo para presentar candidaturas a los Premios Capital Verde Europea y Hoja Verde 2028
Urban areas are the source of many of today’s environmental challenges – not surprisingly, since two out of three Europeans live in towns and cities. Local governments and authorities can provide the commitment and innovation needed to tackle and resolve many of these problems.
The European Commission’s green city awards include two titles. The European Green Capital (EGC) for cities over 100.000 habitants and the European Green Leaf (EGL) for smaller cities as of 20.000 habitants. The awards recognise and reward local action towards a transition to a greener, more sustainable future. Winning cities are including their citizens in this transition, improve the urban environment, combat pollution and mitigate and prepare for more resilience to climate change. A greener city is a place that attracts investors, tourists and provides a better quality of live for their citizens.
The awards give impetus to bolder actions and spur local pride. Frontrunning cities show us the way how the green transition can be done. We can all learn from them.
Winners and finalists of the Green Capital and Green Leaf titles
Discover previous editions of the Award below. Using the map, you can navigate through excellent role models for green cities all over Europe.
The European Green Capital Book collects the testimonials and visions of the past winning cities upon their EU Green Capital year experience. You can go through the Green Book here. Scroll over a city and find good practices, assessment reports and legacy reports.
Key dates for 2028 competition
The competition for the European Green Capital and European Green Leaf Awards 2028 opened on 8 December 2025 and will close on 1 April 2026.
Find the key dates of the competition below:
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8 December 2025Competition opened
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February 2026 (TBC)Online Applicant City Workshop: How to make a good application
A workshop is organised each year to guide participants on how to write a successful application.
Watch the recording of the workshop for the 2027 award cycle. -
1 April 2026Competition closed
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May/June 2026Assessment of applications by the expert panel
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July 2026Announcement of the finalist cities for 2028
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October 2026 (TBC)Finalists cities make presentations to the Jury
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October 2026 (TBC)Awards ceremony to announce the winners (Guimarães, Portugal)
Rules of contest and eligibility
Download the latest Rules of Contest for both the European Green Capital and European Green Leaf Awards.
The Rules of Contest must be adhered to in order for applicant cities to submit eligible applications.
This call for entries for the European Green Capital and European Green Leaf Awards is open to the following applicants:
- Applicant cities from Member States as well as from third countries that are associated to the LIFE programme at the time of closure of the present call.
- Cities from EEA countries can also participate in the call and win the awards, but the prize money will only be given to countries that are associated to the LIFE programme at the time of closure of the present call.
- For the European Green Capital: applicant cities from the countries listed above which have more than 100 000 inhabitants.
- For the European Green Leaf: applicant cities from the countries listed above from 20 000 and below 100 000 inhabitants.
- For the purposes of this contest, a ‘city’ is understood to be an (1) urban area, including metropolitan areas (excluding agglomerations that combine more than one otherwise eligible cities), and must encompass an (2) administrative unit governed by a city council or another form of democratically elected body. In case of doubt whether an entity is a city or not, the applicant will be asked to show the status of the city in question in accordance with its national law.
- For population data, Eurostat will be the source of reference. For countries not covered by Eurostat, the European Commission will perform specific checks when assessing the eligibility criteria and might ask any concerned cities to prove they comply with this requirement.
- In any given year, cities can apply for either the European Green Capital Award or European Green Leaf Awards, but not for both at the same time.
- Past winners of the European Green Capital Award or European Green Leaf Awards titles may not re-apply.
Más información: Comisión Europea