Assessing the Elasticity of Retail Investment to Tax Incentives

The European Commission (DG FISMA) is procuring a 12‑month research and consultancy contract (procedure EC-FISMA/2026/OP/0010) to estimate the elasticity of retail investment to tax incentives and to assess short‑ and long‑term budgetary and macroeconomic implications of Savings and Investment Account (SIA) design options. The contract is a services procurement with an estimated total value of €300,000, requires EU‑wide mapping and modelling (including at least 10 Member States for quantitative work), and deliverables include inception, interim, draft and final reports plus supporting data and code. Tenders must be submitted electronically via the European Commission Funding & Tenders Portal by 20 November 2026 (16:00 Brussels time) and will be evaluated on best price‑quality ratio (70% quality, 30% price). Eligible economic operators, including consortia, must register in the Participant Register (PIC) and comply with the tender specifications, selection evidence and exclusion requirements set out in the procurement documents.

Tender overview

Essential facts

Footnotes

1. 1Submission and full procurement documents are available on the Funding & Tenders Portal (eSubmission) F&T Portal.

Opportunity summary

Call for tenders EC-FISMA/2026/OP/0010 launched by the European Commission, DG FISMA. Purpose: a commissioned study to (1) estimate the elasticity of retail investment to tax incentives and SIA design features and (2) assess budgetary implications for Member States of introducing or refining Savings and Investment Accounts under multiple design scenarios, including second-round macroeconomic effects. Procedure type: open procedure. Nature of contract: services. Main CPV: 73000000 Research and development services and related consultancy services. Estimated total value: €300,000. Maximum contract duration: 12 months. Award method: best price-quality ratio. Submission method: electronic eSubmission via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal. Deadlines and key dates: Contract notice and documents published 12/10/2026; deadline for receipt of tenders 20/11/2026 16:00 Europe/Brussels; public opening 23/11/2026 10:00 Europe/Brussels. TED reference 197/2026 700915-2026.

Tasks and deliverables (what the contractor must do)

The study comprises six core tasks and a full set of deliverables (inception, interim, draft final, final) with stakeholder engagement and modelling components. The contracting authority requires all raw and processed data, code for models/transformations, and annexes (questionnaires, interview guides, detailed mappings and project references). A minimum list of Member States coverage is required and the contractor shall propose the selection and justify choices.

Eligibility and application requirements

Procurement is open under EU public procurement rules. Economic operators must be established entities (legal persons or natural persons) eligible under the EU Treaties, WTO GPA signatory countries and other countries covered by access rules. Participant Register registration (PIC) is required to use eSubmission. Tenderers may submit as a sole tenderer or as a group of economic operators (joint tender). Subcontracting is allowed but identified subcontractors with >10% share or relied-on capacity must be listed and provide commitment letters. Entities on whose capacity the tenderer relies must provide commitment letters when relied upon for selection criteria. Declarations on exclusion and selection criteria are mandatory and will be checked; evidence may be requested. The contracting authority will reject tenders from excluded entities.

Eligible Applicant Types

Funding Type

Consortium Requirement

Beneficiary Scope (Geographic Eligibility)

Target Sector

Mentioned Countries

No specific Member States are mandated in the tender text; the study must cover all EU Member States for Task 1 and at least 10 Member States (or justified clusters) for Tasks 2–5. The contracting authority is the European Commission (based in Brussels, Belgium). Non-EU countries can be proposed only if justified.

Project Stage

Funding Amount

Application Type

Nature of Support

Application Stages

Success Rates

No success rate is provided by the contracting authority. As an open single-contract public procurement, success probability depends on competitiveness of the technical and financial offer, compliance with selection criteria, and scoring under the award formula (70% quality weighting, 30% price weighting). Tenders must meet minimum technical thresholds (at least 60% on each award criterion and a total technical score of 70 points or more) to be considered.

Co-funding Requirement

No co-funding by the contractor is required. This is a conventional service contract where the contracting authority pays the agreed contract price. Tenderers must bear their proposal preparation costs. Where the tender relies on other entities for capacity, evidence of commitments is required but no financial co-funding obligation is imposed.

All templates and tender documents are published on the Funding & Tenders Portal for this procedure. Failure to upload required items in the specified eSubmission sections will lead to rejection. Supporting documents for exclusion or selection may be requested later by the contracting authority or EU Validation Services.

Evaluation and award specifics

Operational and contractual conditions

Risks, limitations and expectations

Contractor must identify data limitations, present mitigation strategies and be transparent about assumptions. Where country-level estimates are not robust, the contractor must document limitations and apply transparent alternative approaches (country grouping, imputation, EU-level estimation). All assumptions, sensitivities and uncertainty ranges must be explicitly reported. The contracting authority may request additional clarifications or corrections and may terminate the contract for failure to meet requirements or for exclusion grounds.

Checklist for a compliant bid

This procurement represents an opportunity to deliver a high-impact policy study that combines applied empirical work, modelling, primary data collection and policy guidance to support Member States’ design and evaluation of Savings and Investment Accounts under the Savings and Investments Union. The contracting authority expects high methodological rigour, transparent assumptions, reproducible models and effective stakeholder engagement.

Documents and procurement pages, including tender specifications and annexes, are available on the Funding & Tenders Portal Opportunity page 1

Footnotes

1. 1Tender documents, annexes, draft contract and templates are published on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal for Call Identifier EC-FISMA/2026/OP/0010; access requires EU Login and Participant Register PIC. Refer to the Portal for the official procurement dossier and updates.

Opportunity summary

This is a European Commission public procurement opportunity for a research and consultancy service supporting the implementation of Savings and Investment Accounts under the Savings and Investments Union. The contractor will assess how tax incentives and other account design features affect household participation in capital markets, the amounts invested, asset allocation, and the fiscal and wider economic consequences for Member States. 1

The opportunity is a contract for services rather than a grant. Successful tenderers will be paid for delivering the specified study, models, data, reports, consultations and presentations. Applicants should therefore structure their offer around technical capability, delivery methodology, professional resources, quality assurance and a compliant financial offer rather than around eligible project costs or a reimbursement rate.

The procurement is particularly suitable for economic operators with combined expertise in public economics, tax policy, household finance, financial markets, behavioural economics, econometrics, macroeconomic modelling, legal and regulatory analysis, survey research and EU policy evaluation.

Key opportunity data

Important date qualification

The metadata contains an additional deadline value of 1 January 2026. This conflicts with the official tender details, the TED data and the tender documents, which identify 20 November 2026 at 16:00 Brussels time as the deadline for receipt of tenders. Applicants should treat the deadline displayed in the live Funding and Tenders Portal and the contract notice as controlling and should submit well before that time.

Purpose and policy context

The study responds to the Commission's policy work on Savings and Investment Accounts. These accounts are investment platforms provided by authorised financial intermediaries that can enable individuals to invest in instruments such as shares, bonds and investment funds, potentially with fiscal or other monetary benefits.

The Commission is seeking stronger evidence on whether tax advantages increase the likelihood that households invest, whether they increase the amounts invested by existing investors, and whether they mainly redirect existing savings rather than generate additional investment. The study must also quantify potential tax revenue losses or gains and assess wider effects on consumption, saving, wealth and investment.

The central policy question is the cost effectiveness of SIAs as an instrument for increasing retail participation in capital markets while accounting for distributional effects, substitution between savings products, market conditions, administrative complexity and the design of national tax systems.

Objectives and scope

The assignment has two complementary specific objectives.

Objective one is to estimate the elasticity of retail investment with respect to tax incentives. This must cover both the extensive margin, meaning whether a household starts investing, and the intensive margin, meaning the amount invested or the share of financial wealth allocated to investment products.

Objective two is to assess the budgetary implications of introducing or refining an SIA under alternative scenarios. The assessment must consider different forms and sizes of tax incentives, participation rates, annual and lifetime contribution limits, eligible assets, holding periods, compliance arrangements, substitution effects with existing savings products and possible second round effects on consumption, income, saving, investment and wealth.

The study must cover all EU Member States for the initial mapping and review task. For surveys and resource intensive quantitative analysis, it must cover at least 10 individual Member States or justified clusters of Member States. The selected countries must be proposed by the tenderer and approved by the Commission.

Non EU countries may be included where they provide clear analytical value, but their inclusion must be justified and proportionate to the available resources.

Required tasks

Task 1: Review of existing evidence and SIA frameworks

The contractor must map national tax treatments of retail investment products and existing tax advantaged accounts across EU Member States. The mapping must classify eligible instruments, types of tax incentives, eligibility rules, contribution limits, holding periods, withdrawal conditions and applicable taxation.

The task also requires a review of participation rates, effectiveness evidence, academic literature, institutional research, behavioural evidence and relevant grey literature on household saving and portfolio decisions.

Task 2: Analyse the effect of incentives on investment decisions

The contractor must assess how tax incentives, simplified tax compliance and other SIA features affect investment participation and the amount invested, with particular attention to non investors and households with limited existing investment allocations.

The expected evidence base includes Eurostat, tax authority statistics, the European Central Bank Household Finance and Consumption Survey, ECB distributional wealth accounts, Eurobarometer and other relevant administrative or survey datasets.

Where data permit, the analysis should use credible causal methods such as difference in differences, regression discontinuity or event studies based on Member States that have introduced, reformed or abolished tax advantaged investment schemes.

Where secondary data cannot adequately explain behavioural mechanisms, the contractor must conduct representative surveys in a suitable minimum set of Member States. Hypothetical scenarios may be used to test responses to changes in tax design and compliance arrangements.

Task 3: Model investor behaviour under SIA design scenarios

The contractor must test how asset eligibility, geographical restrictions, holding periods, investment caps, phase in periods, tax incentive type and size, compliance mechanisms and investor awareness affect participation, investment amounts and asset allocation.

The analysis must address differences by income, wealth, age, education and gender where possible. It should combine cross country panel analysis with stated preference surveys, structured choice modelling, focus groups and interviews with investors, advisers and distributors.

Task 4: Model immediate fiscal effects

The contractor must build a static and dynamic quantitative model of the net fiscal effect of introducing or refining an SIA. The analysis must cover at least 10 Member States and should assess a framework aligned with the Commission approach, including broad asset eligibility and no geographical restriction or minimum holding period requirement, as well as alternative designs.

The fiscal model must distinguish between tax effects on existing investment stocks transferred into an SIA, financial assets transferred from other categories such as deposits, and genuinely new investments arising from increased saving or investment propensity.

Baseline assumptions must include existing participation, interest rates, demographic trends, inflation, asset returns and relevant macroeconomic conditions. Sensitivity analysis must test alternative market and return scenarios.

Task 5: Develop a long term macroeconomic and budgetary model

The contractor must assess the fiscal impact over at least 10 years and preferably longer. The model must account for capital income taxes, capital gains, interest, dividends, household saving rates, rates of return, changes in asset allocation, imperfect substitution between deposits and capital market instruments, and household preferences for assets such as real estate.

The tenderer may propose a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, a partial equilibrium model or a simpler macroeconomic or sectoral framework, but must justify the selected approach and explain its limitations compared with alternatives.

Second round effects must cover, where relevant, household income, wealth, consumption, VAT and other tax revenues, investment, inflation and employment. The model must remain consistent with the first order fiscal impact analysis.

Task 6: Synthesis and EU level conclusions

The final analysis must provide Member State estimates where robustly possible and EU or cluster level estimates where country specific evidence is insufficient. It must clearly distinguish between findings supported by country level evidence and findings based on EU wide or grouped assumptions.

The contractor must also produce a checklist of legal and regulatory features that support successful SIA implementation, including implications of EU and national frameworks and cross border issues concerning providers from third countries.

Deliverables and timetable

The contractual timetable is expressed from the reference date, which is linked to contract commencement and is expected to be confirmed at signature or in the contract administration arrangements.

The final report is scheduled no later than 44 weeks after the reference date, within the maximum 12 month contract period.

Deliverable and timing

Final report requirements

The final report must include an abstract of no more than 200 words, an executive summary of no more than six pages, the full analysis, methodology, limitations, data reliability assessment, results from mapping, surveys, interviews and quantitative analysis, validation of results and conclusions, and relevant annexes.

The report must present results in terms of changes in household investment propensity and wealth or savings allocation across asset classes. Long term results should be presented as ranges where appropriate, incorporating uncertainty and sensitivity analysis.

Annexes should include questionnaires, interview guides, mapping details, consultation responses, relevant statistics, raw data and additional tables or graphics with appropriate sources.

Who can apply

The open procedure allows interested economic operators to submit a tender. Eligible participants may apply as a single legal or natural person, as a group of tenderers or consortium, with subcontractors and with entities whose capacities are relied upon, subject to the conditions and evidence specified in the tender specifications.

The opportunity is not limited to a particular Member State. Tenders may be submitted in any official language of the European Union, although the procurement documents are published in English and the English version is the authentic version.

A consortium may appoint a group leader. Consortium members are jointly and severally liable towards the Commission for performance of the contract. The group leader submits the tender, acts as the single contact point and handles contractual documents and invoicing on behalf of the group.

Subcontracting is permitted where properly declared. Identified subcontractors must provide commitment letters and accept relevant contractual provisions, including checks and audits. The tender must identify the subcontracted tasks and the proportion of contract volume involved.

An entity whose financial, economic, technical or professional capacity is relied upon must provide a commitment letter confirming that the necessary resources will be made available if the tender is successful.

Mandatory registration and submission requirements

Each tenderer and each member of a consortium must be registered in the European Commission Participant Register and must have a Participant Identification Code. Existing organisations must reuse their existing PIC rather than create a duplicate registration.

An EU Login account is required to access and use the electronic submission system. Tenders sent by email, post or any other method will be disregarded.

The submission must include all documents required by the procurement documents at the time of submission. A submission receipt generated by eSubmission provides the official timestamp and evidence of timely submission.

Before the deadline, a tender may be withdrawn or replaced. A replaced tender must be complete in its own right and cannot rely on documents contained only in the earlier submission.

Tenderers bear their own costs of preparing and submitting tenders and attending the opening session. Those costs are not reimbursed.

Exclusion and integrity requirements

Tenderers must declare that they are not in situations of exclusion, including bankruptcy or insolvency, serious breaches of tax or social security obligations, grave professional misconduct, fraud, corruption, criminal organisation involvement, money laundering, terrorist financing, trafficking, significant deficiencies in earlier EU funded contracts, irregularities or prohibited arrangements intended to circumvent legal obligations.

The declaration also covers persons with powers of representation, decision making or control, beneficial owners and, where applicable, persons assuming unlimited liability for the tenderer. Tenderers must declare the absence of conflicts of interest that could negatively affect contract performance.

The Commission may request recent judicial, administrative, tax and social security evidence. Where an exclusion situation exists, remedial measures may be presented, although their sufficiency is assessed by the contracting authority.

Selection and evidence

The tender specifications establish the applicable selection criteria and the evidence to be supplied or retained for possible request. The available documents indicate that selection evidence includes information on annual overall turnover and project references, supported by the relevant annexes and the selection grid.

Applicants should review the official Tender Specifications, Annex 9 on project references and Annex 10 on selection grids for the precise minimum thresholds, reference periods, team requirements and evidence rules. The prepared material does not reproduce every numerical threshold from the selection grid, so no additional threshold should be assumed.

The consortium or single tenderer should be able to demonstrate sufficient technical and professional capacity to deliver a complex cross country study, including data analysis, causal evaluation, behavioural research, fiscal modelling, macroeconomic modelling, legal analysis, stakeholder consultation and high quality English reporting.

Award evaluation

The procurement uses the best price quality ratio. The available procurement data specify a 70 percent quality weighting and a 30 percent price weighting. Applicants should therefore avoid submitting a low price unsupported by a credible and detailed technical approach.

The technical offer should explain the methodology task by task, demonstrate access to relevant data and expertise, identify limitations and mitigation measures, and show how the proposed team will produce reliable Member State and EU level results within the timetable.

The financial offer must use the Commission form and provide total staff costs, administrative expenses, total price excluding VAT, team member fees by task and total person days. The price should be internally consistent with the proposed level of effort and deliverables.

Recommended tender team

A competitive team would normally combine the following capabilities:

The tender may use subcontractors or capacity providers for specialist capabilities, but roles, resources, responsibilities, conflicts of interest and contractual commitments should be clearly documented.

Key applicant risks and mitigation

Practical submission checklist

Commercial and contractual considerations

The estimated contract value is €300,000 and is not a grant ceiling or a fixed funding allocation for applicants. The successful tenderer will be engaged under a direct service contract, with payment and acceptance arrangements governed by the draft contract and linked to the contractual deliverables.

The Commission is not bound to award the contract merely because tenders are received and may cancel the procedure before signature without tenderers being entitled to compensation. A contractual obligation begins only when the contract is signed by both parties.

The Commission may request clarification or missing evidence during evaluation, but clarification must not substantially change the tender. After submission, the tender remains binding during its validity period.

The final report may be subject to amendments, price reductions, liquidated damages or contract termination if it is not accepted in accordance with the draft contract. Applicants should include effective internal quality control and review procedures.

Overall assessment

This is a specialised, high value research procurement with a strong emphasis on analytical quality rather than simple desk research. The winning tender is likely to require a multidisciplinary consortium or a lead organisation with a broad network of experts and proven access to cross country data, survey infrastructure and advanced fiscal and economic modelling capability.

The main differentiator will be the ability to produce credible causal evidence on household responses to tax incentives and translate those estimates into transparent, reproducible and policy relevant fiscal scenarios. A strong offer should also demonstrate how the results will remain useful when data are incomplete, national tax systems differ and household behaviour changes across income and wealth groups.

The opportunity is strategically relevant for research institutes, universities, economic consultancies, public policy firms, financial sector research organisations and consortia that can combine quantitative evidence with tax, regulatory and behavioural expertise.

Official source documents

The authoritative opportunity record and procurement documents are available through the European Commission Funding and Tenders Portal. The core documents include the invitation to tender, Tender Specifications, draft direct service contract, declaration on honour, power of attorney, subcontractor forms, commitment letters, financial offer form, annual turnover statement, standard submission form, project references and selection grid. 1

The official tender specifications define the scope, tasks, deliverables, timetable, eligibility framework, selection requirements, evaluation procedure and tender content. 2

The invitation letter confirms exclusive electronic submission, PIC registration, EU Login requirements, tender validity, communication rules, withdrawal and replacement procedures, and the non binding nature of the invitation before contract signature. 3

Footnotes

1. 1European Commission Funding and Tenders Portal opportunity record: Assessing the Elasticity of Retail Investment to Tax Incentives
2. 2European Commission Tender Specifications, EC-FISMA/2026/OP/0010: Tender Specifications
3. 3European Commission Invitation to tender, EC-FISMA/2026/OP/0010: Invitation to tender