Public subsidies for companies and freelancers: how to apply

A subsidy is a provision of public funds to 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, de 17 de noviembre (the General Subsidies Act or LGS), developed by Real Decreto 887/2006, de 21 de julio (the Regulation). Both laws establish who can be a beneficiary, how the grant is awarded, 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 subsidies there are regional and local ones, as well as grants co-financed with European funds (for example, those of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan). All of them share the principles of publicity, transparency, competition, objectivity, equality and non-discrimination.

Companies and freelancers 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 grant.

The requirement that knocks 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 condemned by a final judgment to the loss of the possibility of obtaining subsidies, being in insolvency proceedings without an approved agreement, having pending the repayment of previous subsidies, or having tax residence in a tax haven.

In addition to the common filter, each call demands 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 a grant you could not obtain.

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

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

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

Collecting the subsidy does not close the file. The beneficiary must justify to the awarding body that they have carried out the activity and applied the money to its purpose (article 30 LGS), normally through a justificatory account with the invoices and payment receipts. Expenses must adjust to market value and be made within the period set by the bases.

If you do not justify it on time, the Administration will require you to do so within a non-extendable period of 15 days (article 70 of the Regulation). Once that period is exhausted without a response, the repayment process begins.

Repayment (article 37 LGS) obliges you to return the grant, 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 it or doing so insufficiently. The Administration's right to demand repayment prescribes after 4 years (article 39 LGS). Managora prepares the justification in due time and form to avoid precisely that repayment.

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 signed provision agreement. The grant is awarded in order of application while there is budget, not by classic competitive bidding.

As of 17 July 2026, the Kit Consulting application period is closed and the programme is in the execution and justification phase of the vouchers already awarded. You can check the updated amount and status on the Managora file, which will notify you as soon as a new call opens.

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 period of 3 years. This is a rolling window counted backwards from each new award, not 3 closed tax or calendar years. Many grants to SMEs are awarded under this regime, so it is advisable to review it before accumulating several subsidies.

In digital transformation, the public focus for 2026 is oriented towards artificial intelligence. Kit Consulting maintains its execution and justification activity for a large part of the year, and there is a willingness to give continuity to this type of advisory vouchers. Managora monitors this and prepares the application for you as soon as it reopens.