What is de minimis aid?
The EU rule that lets small public grants skip full State-aid approval — and the ceiling that comes with it.
"De minimis" aid is public support small enough that the EU treats it as incapable of distorting competition between Member States, so it can be granted without the European Commission's prior notification and approval that larger State aid requires. It still counts as State aid in every other sense — it is public money given selectively to a company — it is simply exempted from the notification procedure under Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/2831, provided the total a single company receives per Member State stays under a ceiling over a rolling window.
The general ceiling is €300,000 over any rolling three years (Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/2831, Art. 3(2)) — sector-specific regulations set separate, usually lower, ceilings for agriculture, fisheries and services of general economic interest. Under Article 3(7), if a new award would push a company over its ceiling, the whole new award falls outside the Regulation — it is not trimmed down to whatever headroom remains, so a company that signs for a grant without checking its running total first can end up owing the money back.
Full mechanics — the four ceilings, how the three-year window rolls, and a calculator that runs the arithmetic in your browser — are on our de minimis headroom calculator.
Sources
Last reviewed 2026-09-25. Rules and figures change — follow the links above to confirm anything you plan to rely on.