How to Validate an Erasmus+ Host Company Before You Sign

• Verify legal existence — VAT number lookup in VIES (EU) or local registry.
• Confirm the named supervisor exists, their role and at least 3 years' relevant experience.
• Read the task plan — at least 60 % must be skill-aligned with the student's curriculum.
• Confirm the working language matches the student's documented level.
• Request the host's civil-liability insurance certificate or local equivalent.
• Ask for two prior intern references (intermediaries can provide aggregated NPS).
• Confirm weekly working hours: 30–40 h/week is standard; >45 h is a red flag.
• Validate location safety and commute time from realistic intern accommodation.
• Agree exit conditions in writing if the placement needs to end early.

• Vague task plans ("general office support", "social media help").
• Refusal to name a supervisor or share an email contact.
• Unpaid overtime expectations or weekend work without compensation.
• No physical address, only a virtual office or co-working desk.

• Signed Learning Agreement (LA Before Mobility).
• Host insurance certificate.
• Initial OLS assessment proof.
• Internal due-diligence checklist signed by the coordinator.

Coordinators routinely under-estimate due-diligence time and end up signing Learning Agreements they have not really validated. The realistic distribution below is based on the 9-point checklist run as a single sequence, with a junior staff member doing the lookups and the coordinator reviewing.

• VIES / national registry lookup — 5 minutes per host.
• Sanctions screening (EU Sanctions Map + UN consolidated list) — 5 minutes.
• Supervisor verification (LinkedIn cross-check, role tenure, direct email) — 15 minutes.
• Task-plan skill-alignment review against the student's curriculum — 20 minutes.
• Insurance certificate request, receipt and review — 1–3 working days end-to-end.
• Reference call with two prior interns — 30 minutes total when references answer.

Total active time per host is around 90 minutes plus the insurance turnaround. Across a 50-student cohort that is 75 hours per cycle — non-trivial but cheap compared to a single failed mobility, which costs 20–40 hours of remediation plus reputational damage with the National Agency.

A failure on a single check is not always disqualifying. The decision tree below maps each failure mode to the proportional response — from 'request more evidence' to 'walk away and document'.

• VAT lookup fails — request alternative legal-existence proof (national chamber of commerce extract). If still unverifiable, walk away.
• No named supervisor — refuse to sign LA-T until a named supervisor with email and phone is provided.
• Vague task plan — return the LA-T with three specific task examples that would meet the curriculum-alignment standard.
• Insurance gap — accept only if the sending HEI's insurance explicitly covers traineeships at the host site.
• Reference unavailable — ask the host for an alternative referee (former student or partner organisation).
• Working hours over 45h/week — refuse and offer to walk back the contract to 38h with explicit overtime rules.

Document each decision in the participant file. National Agency auditors do not penalise coordinators for declining hosts — they penalise coordinators for accepting them without evidence.

If you run more than 20 placements per year, the highest-leverage move is to convert ad-hoc due diligence into a reusable host database. The structure below has worked across our HEI and VET partners.

• One row per host, keyed by VAT/EORI number — never by company name (companies rebrand, VAT numbers do not).
• Track the date of the last full re-verification — re-verify every 18 months minimum.
• Store supervisor turnover — a host that has changed supervisor three times in two years is a quality risk regardless of insurance status.
• Track previous intern NPS — anything below 7/10 triggers a re-vetting on the next request.
• Flag hosts that have hosted both successful and failed placements with the reason for failure recorded explicitly.

A maintained host database becomes a strategic asset — it shortens future selection from days to hours, surfaces patterns your individual coordinators would miss, and is one of the strongest sections in any ECHE renewal or KA121 accreditation review.