Erasmus+ VET Mobility in 2026: A Field Guide for VET Providers

• VET learners enrolled in initial or continuing vocational education.
• Recent VET graduates within 12 months of finishing their course.
• VET teachers, trainers and other VET staff for teaching, training or job-shadowing assignments.

• Short-term learner mobility: 10–89 days (excluding travel).
• ErasmusPro long-term mobility: 90 days to 12 months — designed to deepen professional skills and language proficiency.
• Staff mobility: 2 days to 2 months.

• Travel — distance-band lump sum, with a green-travel top-up for low-emission transport.
• Individual support — daily rate based on the receiving country group.
• Organisational support — fixed amount per participant to cover preparation, monitoring and validation.
• Linguistic support, inclusion top-ups and special-needs support where applicable.

VET providers must follow the Erasmus Quality Standards: written learning agreements, validated learning outcomes (often ECVET-aligned or Europass Mobility), monitoring during the stay and dissemination of results.

The most consequential decision a VET provider makes is whether to apply for Erasmus accreditation (KA121-VET) or run repeated short-term projects (KA122-VET). KA121 gives you a multi-annual budget and a pre-approved Erasmus Plan, which is what every coordinator wants once volume crosses ~30 mobilities/year. KA122 is faster to win and lower-risk for first-time providers but has a hard cap of 30 participants per project and shorter timelines.

• KA121-VET — accreditation valid 2021–2027; one annual call; predictable budget envelopes; required for ErasmusPro long-stay flows above 30 participants.
• KA122-VET — non-accredited short-term projects; 6–18 month implementation; up to 30 mobilities; ideal for first-time applicants and pilots.
• Move from KA122 to KA121 once you have two complete cycles of clean reporting and at least 25 successful mobilities.
• Both routes can co-exist briefly during the transition year — declare it explicitly in your Erasmus Plan to avoid double-counting.

VET providers we work with use a 12-week pre-departure rhythm. The most expensive failures cluster in week 1–4 (host vetting) and week 11–12 (insurance and travel logistics) — never in the middle, where it feels like there is more to do.

• Week 12 — finalise host shortlist; verify business registration, sector code and active employees.
• Week 10 — sign Learning Agreement (LA-VET) with all three parties.
• Week 8 — confirm accommodation, ideally through a vetted intermediary; never wire deposits without a signed contract.
• Week 6 — issue grant agreement and run pre-departure briefing with attendance log.
• Week 4 — finalise insurance: civil liability + accident + workplace; EHIC alone is not enough.
• Week 2 — submit travel itinerary; capture green-travel evidence for top-up claims.
• Week 0 — departure; mentor in receiving country named in writing.

ErasmusPro long-stay flows add three extra checkpoints: language milestones at month 1 and 3, and a mid-mobility supervisor evaluation at the halfway mark. Skip them and the certificate of completion becomes harder to defend at validation.

VET mobility only delivers its full value when the workplace experience is formally recognised back at the sending VET provider. The Programme Guide treats validation as non-negotiable, but the route differs by national system. The shortlist below covers the recognition routes used most often across European VET ecosystems.

• Europass Mobility — the universal document; issued for every Erasmus+ VET mobility regardless of duration.
• ECVET-aligned units — increasingly common in dual-system countries (Germany, Austria); requires pre-agreed learning outcomes in the LA-VET.
• National competence frameworks — Spain's Catálogo Nacional de Cualificaciones, Portugal's Catálogo Nacional de Qualificações, Ireland's QQI awards.
• School-internal credit — a fallback when no national framework applies; document it in the learner's official transcript.
• Industry-recognised certifications — when the host runs accredited training (HACCP in hospitality, AWS in IT, Cisco in networking).

Sequence recognition before departure, not after return. The most common reason learners arrive home with 'just a certificate' instead of validated competences is that nobody mapped the learning outcomes to the national framework while there was still time to adjust the LA-VET.