EU Funding

De minimis aid on digitalization grants: what you need to know

Almost every digitalization grant carries the label “de minimis aid” — a legal concept that can block your dossier if you ignore it.

Northdan Soft is a software supplier, not a funding consultancy, and is not affiliated with any managing authority or development agency. Programme information is indicative — always check the conditions in the programme's official applicant guide.

“De minimis aid” is one of those phrases company owners tick past without reading, even though it sometimes decides the fate of a dossier. The concept comes from European State aid law: member states may grant low-value support without notifying the European Commission, provided the total received by one undertaking stays under the ceiling set by the regulation. That ceiling is EUR 300,000 per single undertaking in any period of three years, fixed by Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/2831 of 13 December 2023, and two details decide the arithmetic. The aid counts from the date the financing contract is signed, not from the date the money reaches the account. And the ceiling applies to the whole group of companies linked by voting rights, by the power to appoint the management bodies or by dominant influence — not to the company that signs the application. The band of EUR 20,000–100,000 still quoted widely online is not this ceiling: it is the grant cap of a call that no longer accepts applications. Verified on 30 July 2026 against the POCIDIF Action 2.1 guide approved by MIPE Order no. 965/23.06.2026 and the scheme approved by MIPE Order no. 875/15.06.2026. Computing your remaining headroom belongs to your funding consultant; Northdan Soft covers the technical half of the dossier — the itemised software offer and the budget mapped onto the guide's cost categories.

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How we help

A technical dossier kept apart from the legal maths

We concentrate on specifications and budget, delivered in the required format, while your consultant quietly checks how the de minimis regime applies.

A budget that survives changes in the requested amount

If your de minimis headroom forces you to reduce the sum requested, we restructure the budget by module rather than rewriting the whole technical project.

Transparent costs for the declarations

Prices in our offer are itemised and documented, which makes the declarations about aid already received far easier to complete correctly.

How the de minimis regime works, without the lawyer's vocabulary

The central idea: public support of small value does not distort competition, so it is granted through a simplified route. In exchange, every company has a limited tank — the sum of all de minimis aid over any three-year span cannot exceed EUR 300,000, and the threshold applies whatever the form of the aid: a tax exemption, a subsidy and a grant all drain the same tank.

Watch out for the notion of a single undertaking: companies linked through shareholding can be treated as one entity when the ceiling is calculated. That is the classic trap for entrepreneurs holding several Romanian limited companies.

What this means on a digitalization grant

On POCIDIF Action 2.1 the de minimis regime does not pay for the development work itself, but for the activities around it: the documentation for submission, the external expert's report, market introduction of the results, information and publicity, project management, the technical audit and accessibility for people with disabilities. Their specific intensity is 100%, so those lines demand no own contribution — in exchange they consume the ceiling. A narrower limit sits on top: for certain de minimis cost categories the non-repayable value may not exceed 10% of the project's maximum eligible value, and the tighter of the two limits is the one that decides.

The order of operations does not change from one scheme to the next: first establish how much de minimis headroom is left, then size the project. We build the budget in variants — full and reduced — so the amount requested can move without the technical architecture being rewritten. What we will not do is compute your headroom or sign the cumulation declaration on your behalf, and the guide gives a second reason for that separation: costs where formal offers are suspected between the applicant and the firms quoting are declared ineligible, and the budget sub-criterion is then scored zero.

Frequently asked questions

How large is the de minimis ceiling, and over what period?

EUR 300,000 for one single undertaking in any period of three years, under Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/2831 of 13 December 2023. The three years are not financial years: at every new award the aid granted over the preceding three years is added up, counted from the date each financing contract was signed.

Where can I see how much de minimis aid my company has received?

The official record sits with the authorities that granted the aid, and your consultant reconstructs it from the financing decisions and the company's earlier declarations. Do not start a new dossier before that inventory is done.

What if my de minimis ceiling is not enough for the whole project?

You have two routes: shrink the project to the available headroom, or fund the difference from your own resources or a loan. Our modular budgets are built exactly for decisions like this — you can cut or postpone modules without losing the coherence of the software solution.