There has been a lot of interest to competence-based education in research and scholarship. How competence-based education has been developed and implemented varies across education systems in Europe. The European Commission defines digital competence as one of the eight key competence standards for lifelong learning. The European digital competence framework DigComp provides a comprehensive and exhaustive framework for citizens; it has the potential to be adapted to the needs of specific target groups. Nevertheless, no current research has focused on the need for developing a common framework for primary and secondary education. To address this gap we present a digital competence framework for European primary and secondary students. DigComp and a set of European frameworks are analysed in this paper. Combining categorical analysis with the collaboration of teachers and experts in the field, we define performance criteria and components that contribute to competence by five categories, providing a framework to promote the acquisition and evaluation of digital competence. This framework can be implemented in any EU country, it incorporates the most recent theoretical advances in research on information and communication technologies.