Public grants for companies and autónomos: how to apply

A grant is a provision of public funds in favour of a person or company, without direct consideration, subject to the fulfilment of an objective, the execution of a project or the adoption of a specific behaviour. The beneficiary receives the money, but is obliged to use it for the intended purpose and to justify it afterwards.

The general framework is Ley 38/2003, of 17 November, General Grants Act (LGS), developed by Real Decreto 887/2006, of 21 July (the Regulation). Both rules establish who can be a beneficiary, how the aid is granted, how it is justified and in which cases it must be returned. Each specific call adds its own regulatory bases, which are mandatory reading before applying.

Alongside state grants, there are regional and local ones, as well as aid co-financed with European funds (for example, those of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan). All of them share the principles of publicity, transparency, concurrence, objectivity, equality and non-discrimination.

Companies and an autónomo who meet the conditions of the call and do not incur in any of the prohibitions of article 13 of the LGS can be beneficiaries. This is the filter that the Administration always applies, regardless of the amount of the aid.

The requirement that turns down the most applications is being up to date with tax obligations and with the Seguridad Social. If you have outstanding debts with Hacienda or the General Treasury of the Seguridad Social, the application is denied unless you regularise it beforehand. Other causes for exclusion include: having been convicted by a final judgment to the loss of the possibility of obtaining grants, being in bankruptcy proceedings without an approved agreement, having a pending repayment of previous grants, or having tax residence in a tax haven.

In addition to the common filter, each call requires its own requirements: company size, sector, seniority, location of the tax address or type of investment. Managora first checks if you fit before preparing anything, so as not to waste time on an aid you could not obtain.

Competitive bidding is the general granting regime (article 22 LGS): the Administration compares all the applications submitted, scores them according to the criteria of the bases and grants the aid, within the available credit, to those that obtain the best assessment. It is not enough to meet the requirements: you must score higher than the rest. The evaluation is carried out by a collegiate body, a guarantee of objectivity.

The alternative is direct granting, reserved for specific cases (nominative grants provided for in the budgets, those imposed by a law, or those that respond to reasons of public, social, economic or humanitarian interest). In direct granting there is no competition: that is why it is exceptional.

All calls are published in the National Grants Database (BDNS), which functions as the National System for the Publication of Grants and Public Aid. The consultation is public, free and does not require registration or a certificate. No Administration can grant a subsidy without having registered it first in the BDNS, so it is the place to locate any current aid. Managora monitors the BDNS for you and notifies you when a call appears that fits your profile.

Receiving the grant does not close the file. The beneficiary must justify to the granting body that they have carried out the activity and applied the money to its purpose (article 30 LGS), usually through a justificatory account with invoices and proof of payment. Expenses must be adjusted to market value and carried out within the period set by the bases.

If you do not justify it in time, the Administration will require you to do so within an unextendable period of 15 days (article 70 of the Regulation). Once that period has expired without a response, the repayment process begins.

Repayment (article 37 LGS) obliges you to return the aid, totally or partially, plus default interest from the moment of payment, in cases such as: not carrying out the activity, breaching the conditions, resisting control actions, or not justifying or doing so insufficiently. The right of the Administration to demand repayment prescribes after 4 years (article 39 LGS). Managora prepares the justification in due time and form to avoid precisely that repayment.

The Kit Consulting is a Red.es programme, financed with NextGenerationEU funds within the Recovery Plan, which grants SMEs vouchers to hire strategic and digital advisory services. The SME chooses an adhered digital advisor and uses the voucher to pay for advice in areas such as artificial intelligence, data analysis, digital sales, business processes, strategy and performance, cybersecurity and 360 digital transformation.

It is aimed at SMEs with a workforce of 10 to 249 employees and a tax address in Spain. The amount of the voucher depends on the size (segments A, B and C), with a maximum per service and a minimum of hours for each service agreement signed. The aid is granted in order of application as long as there is a budget, not through classic competitive bidding.

The application period for the Kit Consulting closed on 31 March 2025 and the programme is in the execution and justification phase of the vouchers already granted. If you have a voucher and Red.es requires documentation or claims the aid back, Managora prepares the reply, the written submissions (alegaciones) or the appeal for you.

The base regulations remain in force without structural changes: Ley 38/2003 and Real Decreto 887/2006. What changes every year are the specific calls, their credits and their deadlines, which are renewed and published in the BDNS throughout the financial year.

Regarding de minimis aid, Regulation (EU) 2023/2831 raised the general limit that the same company can receive through this route in any 3 year period. This is a rolling window that counts backwards from each new grant, not 3 closed tax or calendar years. Many aids to SMEs are granted under this regime, so it is advisable to review it before accumulating several grants.

In digital transformation, the public focus for 2026 is oriented towards artificial intelligence. On 21 September 2026, the Government presented the IA360 Plan, which announces an artificial intelligence voucher for SMEs with a pilot planned for the first half of 2027 and still without bases. Today, what can be requested are the regional calls for digitalisation and artificial intelligence that remain open.