Lombardy startup grant 2026: up to €1 million, closes 25 Nov

At 3pm Italian time on 25 November 2026, Regione Lombardia closes its call for the technological development of innovative startups. This Lombardy startup grant covers 80% of eligible costs, up to €1 million per company, and it isn’t a loan. The budget is €15.6 million: fifteen grants at the ceiling, or about fifty of €300,000.

The province of Milan alone had 2,472 innovative startups on 1 October 2025, a fifth of Italy’s total. The term is a legal status for young, tech-based companies, and the call is reserved for it. Moving your company here, or already running one? Below you’ll find who qualifies, what the money pays for, how to file, how it’s scored, when it’s paid and the mistakes that sink applications. New to all this? Start from our beginner’s map.

What is the Lombardy startup grant, and how much is it worth?

Its official name is the Misura per lo sviluppo tecnologico delle startup innovative. The criteria date from 25 May 2026 (regional resolution XII/6218), and decree no. 10622 approved the call on 4 August. The money comes from Lombardy’s EU regional development fund programme. Finlombarda S.p.A. handles the eligibility checks and the payments.

A grant is money you don’t repay and that costs you no equity. Of the €15,637,408.95 budget, €7 million is reserved for energy projects, where the effect on energy resilience, efficiency or self-sufficiency is, in the call’s words, ‘direct, prevailing and measurable’. Anything the reserve doesn’t use flows back to the general pot.

So what can the money pay for? Work that moves your technology up the TRL scale, short for Technology Readiness Level: 1 means someone has observed the basic principles, 9 means the whole system runs in the real world. In practice:

• a first prototype, or an MVP that a client outside your team can try;
• pilot tests where the product will really be used;
• engineering and certification;
• a small pilot production run.

How does it compare? Italian options first, then the European one.

	Lombardy grant	Smart&Start Italia	EIC Accelerator (EU)
Run by	Regione Lombardia, with Finlombarda	Invitalia	European Innovation Council
What you get	Non-repayable grant, 80% of eligible costs	Zero-interest loan for 80% of eligible costs (90% for all-women and/or under-36 teams, or with a PhD holder working abroad)	Grant below €2.5 million, plus €1 to 10 million in equity
Who	Small innovative startups up to 36 months old (60 at TRL 6 or below), operating site in Lombardy	Small innovative startups up to 60 months old, plans of €100,000 to €1.5 million	Start-ups and SMEs in EU and associated countries, for TRL 6 to 8 work
Timing	28 September to 25 November 2026, then a ranking	Open window, decision within 60 days in order of arrival	Short proposals any time; next full-proposal cut-off 4 November 2026

The regional FAQ says the two Italian measures can coexist only on separate costs, since Smart&Start allows no other aid on the same ones. Our Smart&Start Italia guide covers the national loan. For Brussels, see how the EIC Accelerator works.

Who can apply, and what if you’re a foreign founder?

The requirements are cumulative. On the day you apply, your company must:

• be a small enterprise (micro counts) under EU Regulation 651/2014, and stay one until the award;
• have been on the Italian Companies Register for no more than 36 months, or up to 60 if the project’s technology is at TRL 6 or lower;
• sit in the special section for innovative startups (Decree-Law 179/2012);
• be unlisted, with no profits distributed yet;
• have an operating site in Lombardy on its company record, or commit to opening one by the first payment request.

Agriculture, finance and insurance, real estate and tobacco are out. You’ll also need a clean social-security certificate (the DURC), proof that you meet the catastrophe-insurance rule of Law 213/2023, and directors without final convictions. No status yet? Our guide to innovative startup status in Italy shows how to qualify.

Coming from abroad? Four details matter. Companies resident elsewhere in the EU or EEA can hold the status if they have a production site or branch in Italy. An Italian-resident company has to be in the special section on the day it applies. Non-resident? The FAQ gives you until the first payment request. A filer without an Italian tax code needs platform credentials, and validation can take up to 16 working hours. And the call, FAQ and templates are in Italian. Starting from scratch? Read how to open a company in Italy as a foreigner.

One more for Milan. The €1.5 million cap applies only in the assisted areas listed in the call’s annex D.12.c. On the 2022 regional list you’ll see Vigevano, Voghera, Lodi, Codogno and others, but not one town in the Milan metropolitan area. So with a Milan site, you’re most likely looking at the €1 million ceiling. Check the annex for your address.

What does the grant pay for, and what doesn’t it?

There are seven cost categories. You report five with invoices; the platform adds the last two as flat rates.

Category	What it covers	Note
a) Machinery and instruments	Machines, instruments and hardware strictly needed for R&D, prototyping and testing	No smartphones or mobile phones
b) Software and patents	Software, licences, cloud and SaaS services, patent purchases	Cloud and SaaS for a 12-month period
c) Materials	Raw materials, components, semi-finished goods, consumables	Only if charged directly to the project
d) Technical and scientific services	FTO analysis, pilot product design and development, testing and certification, labs, prototyping, IP protection	Official patent office fees excluded
e) Other advice	Legal, technical and financial advice tied to the project	Up to 20% of a) to d)
f) Staff	Flat rate, no payslips to report	20% of a) to e)
g) Indirect costs	Flat rate	7% of a) to e)

FTO, or freedom to operate, is the check that your product doesn’t infringe someone else’s patents. Attorney fees for FTO, patentability and filing count. Patent office fees don’t.

Left out: suppliers you control or are linked to, plus your own shareholders, directors and employees. Leasing, rental, used goods, travel, building works, notary deeds, taxes and agency staff are out too. A service contract with milestones and deliverables can still count as technical services.

Here’s how the flat rates work. Say a Milan robotics startup budgets €300,000 of direct costs (a to e): a test rig, a year of cloud, components, a testing lab, an IP attorney. The platform adds €60,000 for staff (20%) and €21,000 of indirect costs (7%), for €381,000 of eligible costs. At 80%, the grant is €304,800. The other €76,200 is yours to find.

How do you apply on Bandi e Servizi?

Online only, on Bandi e Servizi, the Region’s platform for calls. The protocol timestamp at submission is what counts.

1. Log in with SPID (Italy’s public digital identity), a CNS smart card or a CIE electronic ID card with its PIN. No Italian tax code? Request credentials and allow up to 16 working hours for validation.
2. Open the call page on Bandi e Servizi and fill in the technical form: a 2,000-character summary (published on the Region’s transparency pages if you’re funded), an 8,000-character description, starting and target TRL with method and evidence, a work plan with milestones and deliverables, the budget, market and revenue model.
3. Upload team CVs on the regional template, a pitch deck (the short slide presentation of your company) of 15 slides at most, the company-size form, catastrophe-insurance proof or a declaration that you’re not obliged (template added on 1 October), the statement on convictions and, where needed, anti-mafia forms.
4. Have the legal representative sign the form with a digital, qualified or advanced electronic signature. CNS and CRS cards work.
5. Pay the €16 stamp duty through pagoPA, the public payments system, and submit before 3pm on 25 November.

Costs count only for activities started from the day after you submit. ‘Started’ means your first legally binding commitment, such as a signed order; permit requests and feasibility studies don’t count.

How is it scored, and when does the money arrive?

Filing early earns no points. Finlombarda checks formal eligibility within 60 days of the close, then a regional technical panel scores each project.

Criterion	Points	Minimum
Project quality (fit with the aims of the EU regional fund programme)	0-20	12
Replicability, scalability and transferability	0-20	None
Innovation against the state of the art	0-20	None
Team’s technical and scientific quality, management capacity	0-30	18
Revenue model and competitive positioning	0-10	6
Total	100	65

Bonus points come in twos, capped at 4: benefit company status, fit with the regional smart specialisation strategy (S3), an environmental or energy management system, and at least 20% of shares held directly by women or people under 35. Ties go to innovation, then team, then scalability, and only then to whoever submitted first.

The FAQ is strict on the team. Only people inside the company on the day you apply count: operating shareholders and directors, and employees. Consultants, freelancers and promises to hire don’t. A team of one isn’t excluded, but it still needs 18 of 30.

The final ranking is due within 120 days of the deadline, around 25 March 2027, unless the clock stops for document requests. You then have 30 days to accept or lose the grant, and 15 months from the award notice to finish, plus up to 6 if you ask at least 60 days ahead.

And the cash? There’s no advance. You take one payment at the end, or two: an interim one of up to 40% of the grant, requested within 8 months of the award once 40% of approved costs are reported, then the balance. Finlombarda pays the interim within 80 days of the request. In the robotics example, collecting €121,920 means about €120,000 of invoices already paid. That money has to exist first.

Which mistakes cost founders the grant?

• Signing a supplier order before you submit. It’s your first binding commitment, so that cost won’t be eligible.
• Letting an agency build your MVP and keep the code. The FAQ wants the contract to give you exclusive, permanent ownership of the economic rights in what’s built for the project, with the source code handed over. A licence, even a long one, isn’t enough.
• Listing advisers as team.
• Paying for tools in small monthly invoices: under €1,000 of taxable amount, an invoice doesn’t count.
• Stacking aid on the same costs. Smart&Start works only on separate costs, and aid funded by Italy’s recovery plan (the PNRR) never does.
• Leaving it to the last afternoon. The window shuts at 3pm, not midnight.

Are you, or a shareholder, under 35? Besides the bonus points, see what’s open for founders under 35 in 2026. And if a patent is part of the plan, our Brevetti+ 2026 guide covers the national measure.

Your checklist before 25 November

1. Pull your company record (the visura): registration date, special section, operating site, ATECO code.
2. Write down your starting and target TRL, and the evidence behind each.
3. Build the budget line by line: other advice under 20%, no invoice below €1,000.
4. Reread your software contracts. Who owns the code?
5. Prepare CVs, a deck of 15 slides or fewer, and the insurance proof or declaration.
6. Check the legal representative’s SPID or CIE and digital signature, or request credentials now.
7. Put 15 months of cash on one sheet, month by month.

Want a second pair of eyes on the form and budget before you submit? That’s the work of our public funding service for Italy.

This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change: check the official call and FAQ on Bandi e Servizi, or ask a professional, before you apply.