The SME Eco-Tech digital package: what is funded and where it stops

Per the implementation procedure, the digital package covers a presentation website or an online store; domain registration, without hosting; promotion of the site or store; the software needed to run the activity, up to 15,000 lei excluding VAT; the electronic signature; PC-type IT equipment — desktop, server, monitor, printer or multifunction device, portable systems; licences; smartphones and tablets.

Two details change how the budget is written. First, the 15,000 lei excluding VAT ceiling applies to the software line, not to the whole package — the website, the equipment and the licences have their own treatment. Second, hosting does not appear in the package: domain registration is reimbursed, the annual hosting subscription is not, and it stays an operating cost of the company.

Per the implementation procedure, VAT, permits and fees, packaging, transport, staff training, commissioning, assembly and labour are not eligible. Neither are leased or second-hand assets, nor costs already financed from other sources. Payments are made within at most 12 months of the financing agreement entering into force.

On a machine purchase those exclusions are a small share of the value. On a software component they are the work itself: installation and configuration, commissioning and user training. A budget that ignores this discovers at reimbursement that the licence was eligible and the implementation was not.

A project starts at 668,100 lei of eligible costs. The grant covers at most 40%, capped at CHF 50,000 — 267,240 lei — and the loan contracted with a partner bank must be at least 400,860 lei. Above the threshold the grant cap stays fixed, so the share it covers falls.

On top of that sits the green condition: at least 40% of total eligible costs must be equipment for renewable energy, waste collection or recycling and resource saving. Registrations are open until 24 September 2026, 20:00, and funding is awarded in order of submission; the deadline was already extended once, from 26 July 2026.

The order published in Official Gazette no. 558 of 7 July 2026 removed the requirement that the financed activity be manufacturing: trade and services companies became eligible, except the fields excluded by the de minimis rules. The same change admitted micro-enterprises set up by 31 December 2021 with a turnover of at least 2 million lei as at 31 December 2024.

The description of SME Eco-Tech as a manufacturing-only programme reflects the rules in force before 7 July 2026.

What fits: a presentation website on an adapted theme costs an indicative 300–1,500 €, a custom one 1,500–5,000 €, and a WooCommerce store with Romanian courier and invoicing integrations 1,500–8,000 €. Our prices are indicative, excluding VAT and expressed in euro, while the programme ceilings are in lei; the programme sets no reference exchange rate, so we do not convert on your behalf.

What does not fit: implementing an ERP costs an indicative 5,000–20,000 €, above the programme's software line. The limit that costs us a contract: we do not split an ERP into several business-software lines to squeeze it under the ceiling, and we do not invoice training or commissioning under a licence heading. Northdan Soft is the supplier of the digital component, not a funding consultant.