Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are based and operational in Malta or Gozo.

The size test applies to the whole undertaking, not just the applying company. Where your business has linked or partner enterprises — through shared ownership, control, or significant shareholdings — their headcount and financials are aggregated with yours, in full or in proportion. A company that looks micro on its own accounts can test as small or medium once the group is taken into account, and that changes both eligibility and aid intensity. Establish this before you apply; it is not always straightforward and is worth confirming with your accountant.

Thresholds, assessed at undertaking level (must satisfy the headcount test, and either turnover OR balance sheet):

You are automatically excluded if any of the following apply:

• You are subject to collective insolvency proceedings
• You have an outstanding EU recovery order
• Your principal activity is agriculture, forestry, fishing, tobacco, or gambling / betting (see NACE codes)
• You are a public entity (with narrow exceptions for commercial arms)
• Your business itself supplies the digital solutions you would be procuring
• You have the internal capability to develop or retail the eligible expenditure yourself

Full list of exclusions in the "Ineligible costs" tab. Jump to ineligible costs →

Applications with a Grant Request over €60,000 are automatically assessed for financial viability. The Intermediate Body reserves the right to do this check even for grants under €60k.

The check looks at whether your organisation:

• Has sufficient liquidity to cover short-term commitments
• Is financially autonomous and able to cover debt costs
• Is solvent and able to cover medium and long-term commitments
• Is profitable or at least has self-financing capacity

You can pre-check your position using the EU's own simulator: https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/lfv/lfvSimulation.do

You must also meet the Total Eligible Cost to Net Assets ratio of more than 2% to pass the Gateway Criteria.

Net assets can also cap your eligible cost

Separately from the viability rating, your net assets (total assets less total liabilities) determine how much eligible cost the grant can be calculated on:

Start-ups under 3 years with net assets below 20% of total eligible cost, or negative net assets not exceeding €120,000, may instead base the threshold on share capital above the statutory minimum, multiplied by 10 and then by 250%.

Negative net assets between €60,000 and €120,000 reduce the maximum aid intensity by 10 percentage points. Applicants with negative net assets are otherwise excluded, except start-ups under 3 years within the €120,000 limit.

This grant is awarded under the EU de minimis regime (Commission Regulation 2023/2831). Under that regime, a single undertaking cannot receive more than €300,000 in de minimis aid over any rolling three-year period, from any public source (EU or national, this scheme or another).

What counts against the €300k:

• All de minimis aid already received in the past 3 years
• All de minimis aid pending approval
• The amount you are applying for now
• The total for the whole single undertaking, which includes linked enterprises (majority voting rights, right to appoint board, dominant influence, or shareholders' agreement control)

You will need to fill in the official de Minimis Declaration Form as part of the application, downloadable from fondi.eu. Getting this wrong risks rejection or, later, recovery of the funds with interest.

What "single undertaking" means: for de minimis purposes, two enterprises are treated as a single undertaking (and share the €300k limit) if any of the following apply between them:

• One holds a majority of the shareholders' or members' voting rights in the other
• One has the right to appoint or remove a majority of the members of the other's administrative, management or supervisory body
• One has the right to exercise a dominant influence over the other under a contract or under the other's memorandum / articles of association
• One is a shareholder or member of the other and controls a majority of voting rights under an agreement with other shareholders / members

Enterprises linked to each other through one or more intermediate enterprises via any of these relationships are also considered a single undertaking. This is why parent companies, subsidiaries, and sister companies all pool into the same €300k cap.

Yes, with conditions. The rules cover both "multiple ongoing projects" and "applying again after completion":

You are also always bound by the separate de minimis limit of €300,000 over 3 rolling years across all public funding, not just this scheme.

The Guidance Notes list 23 categories of ineligible expenditure. The most common gotchas for our clients:

• VAT and any other taxes or duties
• Maintenance and support agreements (MSA), including bundles for technical issues, help-desk services, break/fix support
• Design, marketing, and general consultancy fees
• Used, refurbished or re-manufactured digital solutions
• Insurance, bank charges, commissions, foreign exchange losses, depreciation
• Mobile phones, network cabling, and building envelope works (electrical installations, sockets, plugs, switches)
• Projects already funded under other EU programmes

Eligible replacements for MSA-type spend

MSA is out under §2.4(a), but the underlying services can often be restructured into eligible categories:

The full list of ineligible categories is in the Ineligible costs tab of this document, quoted directly from the Guidance Notes.

The following categories are eligible under the general threshold. This is not an exhaustive list — other hardware, software or digital solutions identified in the application may also be considered eligible under the scheme.

Hardware includes laptops, docking stations, port replicators, monitors and tablets. Analytical tools include the necessary hardware and software.

Installation and training are eligible where they relate to an item acquired above, are included in that item's purchase price, and are provided by the same supplier.

AI investments carry their own eligible expenditure list and a separate €100,000 threshold — see What is the AI top-up and do we qualify?

The grant has two possible layers:

Minimum grant is €25,000. If your project would produce a grant smaller than that, it will not qualify as-is.

Aid intensity (what percentage of eligible costs the grant covers): 50% in Malta, 60% in Gozo, with possible uplifts of +10% (MDIA on specific tech) and +5% (digital intensity). See dedicated FAQs below.

Yes — €25,000 is a hard minimum grant. It's confirmed in two independent places in the official documents:

What this means in practice

The €25,000 floor applies to the grant amount, not the project size. The eligible cost required therefore depends on the aid intensity that applies:

Uplifts raise the applicable intensity and lower the eligible cost required. The +10% MDIA uplift attaches to qualifying items; the +5% digital intensity uplift applies to the application as a whole where the pre- and post-project criteria are met. Both are assessed case by case, so treat the figures above as planning guides rather than thresholds to design to. More on the uplifts →

Where the projected grant falls below €25,000

The application does not qualify in its current form. The scope needs revisiting rather than the application submitting. Common routes:

• Include eligible digitalisation expenditure already committed for the same period.
• Combine related items into a single project — subscription software, supporting hardware, and custom development.
• Review with your technology partner whether further processes are candidates for digitalisation.

Whether any of these apply depends on the eligibility of the individual items and on the assessment of the project as a whole.

Two possible uplifts to your aid intensity, on top of the base 50% (Malta) / 60% (Gozo):

Important MDIA caveats:

• MDIA top-up is subject to budget availability
• For AI-related projects, the MDIA top-up is disbursed one year after project completion, only after you submit the productivity gains report and the Ethical AI and Societal Well-Being report
• Some items are potentially eligible under the main scheme but do not qualify for the MDIA top-up: tablets, laptops, desktop PCs, monitors, projectors, printers/copiers/scanners, barcode readers, and cash registers. See the "Ineligible costs" tab for the full list

The 12 Digital Intensity technologies (Annex VI)

The +5% Digital Intensity uplift is designed to reward SMEs that meaningfully step up their digital maturity through the project. The scoring uses 12 categories set out in Annex VI of the Guidance Notes. To qualify, you need to be in the lower band today (6 or fewer) and end the project in the higher band (7 or more).

Practical note. The pre-project position is formally established through the Digital Intensity Assessment that MDIA carries out before the project. Contact MDIA at funding.mdia@mdia.gov.mt to book. This tool is a self-check to help you plan.

A 7% flat rate is automatically added to your grant to cover your indirect costs (things like project admin, overheads, utilities). You do not need to document these costs individually — the flat rate is a simplified cost option under EU Reg. 2021/1060.

The 7% is calculated on the eligible cost, and it applies separately to the standard portion and the AI portion of your project.

Call 2 added a dedicated AI stream. Projects that include eligible AI investments can raise their grant cap by up to €100,000 (plus 7% = €107,000 max additional).

Eligible AI expenditure includes:

• Custom-built AI solutions, customised off-the-shelf AI, subscription-based AI platforms (up to 2 years), consumption / usage-based models (up to 2 years)
• Integration services connecting AI to ERP, CRM, POS, or other core systems
• Hardware or cloud services directly needed to run the AI (cloud up to 2 years)
• Cybersecurity for the AI, AI assurance frameworks, User Acceptance Testing, deployment and configuration
• User training tied to the AI solution when delivered by the same supplier
• AI staff costs: capped at 25% of the AI threshold (max €25,000), at €19.62/hour, "Professionals" category only, hours identified in scoping report

What you must submit for the AI top-up:

• Scoping report — sets out the proposed AI cost items and, where AI staff costs are claimed, the tasks and man-hours allocated to each.
• Ethical AI and Societal Well-Being Assessment (EAISW) — identifies which tasks or processes the AI will automate or offload, and how staff effort will be redirected toward higher-value work.
• Productivity Gains Forecast Report — the forecast improvement expected from the investment, against which actual performance is measured after implementation.

All three are compulsory attachments for applications requesting the AI threshold. The first two are revisited a year after completion to release the MDIA top-up.

Always required (marked * in the User Guide checklist):

• Declaration Form (signed)
• Tax Compliance Certificate from Malta Tax and Customs Administration
• NACE Code 2.1 Confirmation
• Evidence of Private Match Financing
• GANTT Chart or Implementation Schedule
• Investment Proposal or Technical Specifications and Quotations (three quotes per sub-activity, from unrelated suppliers)
• Pre-project Digital Intensity Assessment (issued by MDIA)
• De Minimis Declaration Form

Required only if applying for the AI top-up:

• Scoping report outlining proposed AI cost items
• Ethical AI and Societal Well-Being Assessment
• Productivity Gains Forecast Report

Required in specific circumstances (partnership, non-Director signatory, permits, etc.):

• Declaration of Authorization (if signatory is not a Director)
• Certificate of Registration
• Memorandum & Articles of Association
• Audited Financial Statements or Management Accounts
• Copies of any necessary Permits
• Declaration by Trustees or Fiduciary

See the Where we help tab for which of these Threls can help you produce.

The scheme runs as an open rolling call with periodic cut-off dates. Applications submitted before each cut-off are batched, evaluated, and either awarded or rejected together.

Scheme window: open until 31 December 2026. All investments must be concluded by 30 June 2029.

Once approved: the Grant Agreement is signed after evaluation. From that date, you have 6, 12, 18, or 24 months to implement (whichever you applied for). Extensions in 6-month blocks may be granted, with deductions (see "What happens if I do not complete on time?" below).

Applications are first checked against Gateway (eligibility) Criteria, then scored against Selection Criteria only if they pass the gateway. You need at least 50% of the total score to be approved, subject to budget availability.

Gateway Criteria (all must be met):

1. Complete application with all supporting documents by the cut-off date
2. Applicant is an eligible undertaking
3. The proposed action is eligible and includes at least one eligible activity
4. Evidence of private match financing
5. Total Eligible Cost to Net Assets ratio > 2%

The Project Selection Committee then scores across Project Excellence, Impact & Sustainability, Quality of Implementation, Risk, National & Horizontal Priorities, and Do No Significant Harm.

The scheme reimburses expenditure you have already incurred. Procurement may only begin once the Grant Agreement is signed — work started before the aid is granted is ineligible.

Advance payments together may not exceed 40% of the total eligible grant. Components covered by the second advance must be fully paid, delivered and operational within the same calendar year.

The AI top-up is settled separately. Where the increased AI threshold applies, the 10% MDIA top-up on that portion is not paid with the final claim. It is claimed one year after project completion, against an MDIA-verified update to the Ethical AI and Societal Well-Being assessment and a report on the productivity gains actually achieved.

What gets reimbursed: the lower of the invoice amount or the expenditure approved in the Grant Agreement. Where three quotations were submitted, reimbursement is pegged to the cheapest accepted quotation or the invoice, whichever is lower.

Timing: claims are expected within 3 calendar months of the operation end date in the Grant Agreement. Later submission incurs a deduction of 0.5% of the grant per month, or part month.

This is why evidence of private match financing is required at application stage: you carry the investment until reimbursement.

The scheme allows extensions in 6-month blocks, but with deductions from your grant:

All investments must be concluded by 30 June 2029 regardless of extensions granted.