Aim of this paper is to review existing European policies relevant to the bioeconomy and examine how their main objectives support or align with the five core objectives under the 2018 Bioeconomy Strategy as well as key challenges in biomass value chain stages to identify policy gaps and produce set of recommendations. A structured review of over ninety policies relevant to the bioeconomy was conducted by value chain stage and provided an understanding of how key activities and challenges within biomass value chains are being addressed. Several gaps were identified in relation to these challenges in each stage, including a lack of European-wide harmonised characterisation of marginal land, integration among sectoral policies targeting soil quality and financial measures incentivising the uptake of sustainable soil improvers. At the biomass production stage, inadequate policy support was found for waste mobilisation and valorisation. Furthermore, there is a lack of policy provisions and financial support improving collaborations among value chain actors to overcome the complexity associated with harmonising biomass logistics and conversion processes. Finally, regarding the end use stage, policy interventions targeting the distribution and standardisation of the wide range of biobased products and services remain limited. Based on gap analysis, recommendations were produced outlining ways in which policy measures can be updated through introducing additional provisions, or formulating novel policies altogether. Recommendations were made following the value chain analysis approach, which addresses specific challenges in relation to the five core objectives with the aim of increasing the level of coherence among sectoral policies.