How much de minimis aid headroom does your company have left?
Small public grants and tax breaks across the EU are capped per company, per Member State, over a rolling three-year window. Enter what you have already taken and this runs the same arithmetic our matching engine does — in your browser, sent nowhere — to show what is left, and on what future date more of it frees up.
Not legal advice. This is a calculator, not a ruling. The granting authority's own declaration and assessment govern whether a specific award is de minimis and whether it fits your headroom — use this to check your own arithmetic before you apply, not instead of the authority's process.
The four ceilings
Four EU regulations set de minimis ceilings. Each has its own limit, but they are not fully separate pots: under Article 5(2) of Regulation (EU) 2023/2831, general, agriculture and fishery de minimis aid together may not exceed the general €300,000 — the calculator applies that combined cap. Figures verified against the EUR-Lex text of each regulation; sources are linked at the end of this page.
Simplifications: the calculator treats SGEI de minimis as its own €750,000 pot and does not model how agriculture and fishery aid cumulate with each other for a company active in both. If either applies to you, ask the granting authority how it counts your existing awards.
| Aid type | Regulation | Article | Ceiling | Window |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General de minimis | Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/2831 | Art. 3(2) | €300,000 | any 3 years, rolling |
| SGEI de minimis | Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/2832 | Art. 3(2) | €750,000 | any 3 years, rolling |
| Agriculture (primary production) | Regulation (EU) No 1408/2013 (as amended by (EU) 2024/3118) | Art. 3(2) | €50,000 | any 3 years, rolling |
| Fishery & aquaculture | Regulation (EU) No 717/2014 (as amended by (EU) 2023/2391) | Art. 3(2), Art. 3(2a) | €30,000 (up to €40,000 where the Member State runs a central register) | 3 fiscal years |
Road freight transport has no separate sub-ceiling under the current general Regulation (EU) 2023/2831 — that EUR 100,000 figure existed only in the predecessor Regulation (EU) No 1407/2013, which expired 31 December 2023. Road freight operators are on the standard €300,000.
What is de minimis aid?
"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 an undertaking — it is simply exempted from the notification procedure under Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/2831 (and the sector-specific regulations above), provided the total a single company receives per Member State stays under the ceiling over the relevant window.
The exemption is not automatic paperwork-free money: Article 3(7) of Regulation 2023/2831 says that if a new award would push a company over its ceiling, that whole new award falls outside the Regulation — it is not trimmed down to whatever headroom remains. A founder who signs for a grant without checking their running total first can end up owing the money back.
How the three-year rolling period works
Recital 11 of Regulation (EU) 2023/2831 is explicit that the period "should be assessed on a rolling basis": every time a new award is considered, the granting authority looks back at the exact 36 months before it, not at fixed calendar or fiscal years. That replaced the predecessor Regulation (EU) No 1407/2013's fiscal-year approach, and the two give materially different answers near a year boundary — this calculator uses the current, rolling rule.
- The clock starts at the grant date, not the payment date. Article 3(3): aid is "deemed granted at the moment that the legal right to receive the aid is conferred… irrespective of the date of payment." A grant agreement signed in December counts from December, even if the cash lands months later.
- The ceiling is per Member State. Aid from France and aid from Germany draw on two separate pots for the same company — a multi-country group tracks each one independently.
- Old awards drop out one at a time. As each award passes its own 36-month mark it stops counting, which is why the same company can be over the ceiling today and clear again in a few months without taking any new action — the calculator above shows that date.
- Fishery and aquaculture aid is the one exception. Regulation (EU) No 717/2014 (as amended) counts "three fiscal years", not a rolling 36-month window. This calculator approximates it on the same rolling basis as the other three regimes for a single running total — treat the date it shows as indicative and confirm against your actual fiscal year with the granting authority.
Sources: Regulation (EU) 2023/2831 · Regulation (EU) 2023/2832 (SGEI) · Regulation (EU) No 1408/2013 (agriculture, as amended) · Regulation (EU) No 717/2014 (fisheries, as amended)