Startup grants in Italy: what’s open in autumn 2026

Seven weeks. That’s what’s left of Lombardy’s €15.6 million call for innovative startups, which closes at 15:00 on 25 November 2026. The EIC Accelerator’s next cut-off for full proposals comes sooner, on 4 November. And Brevetti+, the patent grant that ran dry on its first day last November, has €20 million set aside for 2026 but no call yet.

This roundup of startup grants in Italy covers what you can apply for this autumn, checked on each official page on 8 October 2026: who it’s for, what it gives, the limits that trip people up, and whether it’s open, closed or waiting for its next window. New to all this? Start with the beginner’s map from zero to a first round.

Which startup grants in Italy are open in October 2026?

Four kinds of public money appear below. A grant (contributo a fondo perduto) is never repaid. A zero-interest loan is repaid, just without interest. A guarantee gets you a bank loan you might otherwise be refused, and a tax credit cuts taxes you’d pay anyway.

Measure	For whom	What you get	Status on 8 Oct 2026
Smart&Start Italia (Invitalia)	Small innovative startups registered up to 60 months	Zero-interest loan for 80% of a €100,000 to €1.5M plan (90% for some teams); 30% not repaid in the South	Open, no deadline
ON, Nuove imprese a tasso zero	Micro and small firms up to 60 months old, majority under 35 or women	Zero-interest loan up to 10 years, aid capped at 90% of costs	Open, loan only since 1 July 2026
Resto al Sud 2.0	Unemployed or inactive people aged 18 to 34, eight southern regions	Voucher up to €40,000 (€50,000 with top-up); grant of 75% or 70% on plans up to €200,000	Open since 15 Oct 2025
Autoimpiego Centro-Nord	Same profile, twelve central and northern regions	Voucher up to €30,000 (€40,000); grant of 65% or 60% on plans up to €200,000	Open since 15 Oct 2025
Lombardy: tech development of innovative startups	Small and micro innovative startups operating in Lombardy	Grant of 80%, up to €1M (€1.5M in assisted areas)	Open until 25 Nov 2026, 15:00
Brevetti+ 2026	Italian SMEs with a patent or patent application	2025 rules: grant of 80% up to €140,000	Funded (€20M), call not yet published
SIMEST, Fondo 394/81	Italian companies with filed accounts and plans abroad	Loan at 0.371%; grant share up to 10%, or 20% in some cases	Open, portal reopened 21 Sep 2026
Fondo di garanzia PMI	SMEs and professionals, through a bank or confidi	Guarantee on up to 80% of a loan, free for innovative startups	Open, 2025 rules extended to end-2026
R&D tax credit	All businesses resident in Italy	10% of R&D costs, up to €5M a year	No call: claimed in the tax return, until 2031
Patent box	Businesses with software, patents or designs	110% extra deduction on related R&D costs	No call: five-year option in the tax return
EIC Accelerator (EU)	Startups and SMEs; small mid-caps for equity only	Grant below €2.5M, equity of €1M to €10M, or both	Short proposals any time; next full cut-off 4 Nov 2026

Read the last column twice. Most national measures run as a sportello: no deadline, no ranking, files examined in order of arrival until the money’s gone. With a sportello, a complete file on day one beats a polished one in week six.

Smart&Start 2026 and ON: zero-interest loans for new companies

Smart&Start Italia is the main national scheme for innovative startups (a legal status for young, innovation-driven companies, with its own section of the business register). It’s run by Invitalia, the national development agency, and it’s a loan, not a grant. That surprises plenty of founders. The company must be small and registered for no more than 60 months, with a business plan of €100,000 to €1.5 million.

The loan covers 80% of eligible costs at zero interest and runs for up to ten years. It’s 90% if the team is entirely women and/or under-36s, or includes a PhD holder working abroad. In eight southern regions, from Abruzzo to Sicily, you repay only 70%. And if outside investors, or individual shareholders, put in equity, you can ask to convert part of the loan into a grant: up to 50% of what they invested, capped at half the total aid.

Files are examined within 60 days, in order of arrival. By 31 August 2026 Invitalia had financed 1,444 innovative startups. One caveat: a ministerial decree of 13 July 2026 changes parts of the rules, but the ministry gives no start date, and on 8 October no implementing circular was listed. Our Smart&Start guide for 2026 has the eligible costs and steps.

ON (Oltre Nuove imprese a tasso zero) suits a different profile: micro and small companies under 60 months old where more than half the partners, by number and by shares, are aged 18 to 35 or are women. Plans can reach €1.5 million, or €3 million for companies between 36 and 60 months old. The grant share stopped when the money ran out, on 30 June 2026. Since 1 July you get only the zero-interest loan: up to ten years, with total aid capped at 90% of eligible costs.

Government grants for startups in Italy if you’re under 35

Resto al Sud 2.0 and Autoimpiego Centro-Nord are real grants, and the condition is about you, not the company. Two things must be true on the day the business starts. You’re 18 to 34. And you’re unemployed, inactive, out of work, on the GOL employment programme or among the working poor. Both have been open since 15 October 2025, with no end date on either page. Invitalia examines files within 90 days, in chronological order, while funds last.

• Resto al Sud 2.0 has €356.4 million for the eight southern regions. There’s a voucher you never pay back, up to €40,000 (€50,000 with the top-up), and a grant for investment programmes: 75% up to €120,000, 70% up to €200,000. Farming, fishing and aquaculture are out.
• Autoimpiego Centro-Nord covers the other twelve regions, Piedmont to Lazio, Lombardy included, with €219.6 million. The figures are a notch lower: a voucher of up to €30,000 (€40,000 with the increase), then a grant of 65% up to €120,000 and 60% up to €200,000.

Timing is where these files go wrong. Autoimpiego funds only businesses started in the month you apply or the month before, and only expenses dated after the application. More in our guide to grants for founders under 35 in Italy.

Calls with a deadline: Lombardy, Brevetti+ and the EIC

Lombardy: 80% for innovative startups, until 25 November

Lombardy’s call for the technological development of innovative startups has been open on Bandi e Servizi since 28 September, and you have until 15:00 on 25 November. The region pays 80% of eligible costs. The cap is €1 million, or €1.5 million if the project runs in an EU assisted area. In the pot: €15,637,408.95, with €7 million kept back for energy projects.

It’s for small and micro innovative startups with an operating site in Lombardy, one application each. Files are ranked after the deadline, with the final decree due within 120 days. Already funded by Smart&Start? The FAQ lets you apply for separate costs that don’t overlap, since Smart&Start doesn’t stack with other state aid. PNRR-funded aid never combines with this grant. Our Lombardy startup grant guide covers the scoring.

Brevetti+ 2026: funded, not yet open

A MIMIT decree of 28 July 2026 set aside €32 million for patents, designs and trade marks, €20 million of it for Brevetti+. On 8 October the calls were still missing. In 2025 Brevetti+ paid up to 80% of eligible costs, capped at €140,000, to SMEs with a recent patent or patent application. It opened on 20 November and closed from the 21st. Our Brevetti+ 2026 guide lists what you can prepare before the call appears.

EIC Accelerator: the European option

The EIC Accelerator is the EU’s money for startups and SMEs: a grant under €2.5 million, €1 million to €10 million in equity, or both together. Short proposals can go in any day; the EIC bundles them for evaluation on the first Tuesday of each month. The next cut-off for full proposals is 4 November 2026.

The odds are long. For the round announced in February 2026, the Italian Space Agency counted almost 1,000 applications and 61 companies funded, three of them Italian: Involve Space, Adaptronics and Fluid Wire Robotics. In June, 38 of the 87 companies interviewed made it. Our EIC Accelerator guide explains how grant and equity combine.

Guarantees, export loans and tax credits: no call needed

The Fondo di garanzia per le PMI “non eroga contributi in denaro”, as the ministry puts it: it hands out no money. It guarantees part of a bank loan instead, up to 80% for investments and 50% for liquidity, and you ask through your bank or a confidi (a mutual guarantee body), never the Fund directly. Innovative startups get free, simplified access. The 2025 rules run to the end of 2026. Here’s how the SME guarantee fund works.

Selling abroad, or about to? SIMEST, part of the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti group, lends from the Fondo 394/81. Take its market-entry loan, Inserimento mercati esteri. You can borrow from €10,000 up to 35% of your average revenue in the last two balance sheets, never more than €2.5 million for an SME or innovative startup. Six years to repay, nothing on the capital for the first two, at 0.371%. Up to 10% (max €100,000) needn’t be repaid at all. Heading for Africa, Central or South America or India as an innovative startup or innovative SME? Then that share can reach 20%, up to €200,000.

The portal reopened at 9:00 on 21 September 2026. It now has its own section for AI and quantum computing projects, with €200 million set aside. For a young company the binding limit is that revenue cap. Our SIMEST financing guide covers the other loan lines.

The R&D tax credit is 10% of eligible R&D costs until 2031, capped at €5 million a year: spend €100,000 and it’s worth €10,000. No application: it goes in your tax return, and you offset it through the F24 form from the next year. You’ll need a technical report and an auditor’s sign-off on the costs. No auditor? Up to €5,000 of that fee is added to the credit.

R&D that ended up as copyright-protected software, a patent, a design or a model? The patent box adds an extra deduction of 110% of those costs. The option lasts five tax years. You can’t back out early. You can renew.

Which measure fits your startup, and what to prepare

Start with three questions. How old is the company? Is it registered as an innovative startup? Where does it operate? Say your innovative startup is two years old and based in Brescia. Smart&Start, the Lombardy grant and the Fondo di garanzia are all on the table. A 27-year-old out of work since spring who wants to open a design studio in Bari? That’s a Resto al Sud 2.0 file. A five-year-old exporter belongs with SIMEST.

Every scheme here asks the same question: what will you spend, on what, and by when? Answer it once, properly, with supplier quotes and a month next to each cost. Then reuse it in the application, at the bank and on the use of funds slide investors expect. Going for Smart&Start or SIMEST? We wrote a handbook on exactly those two (PDF and Excel, in Italian and English, €89): who qualifies, what they fund, the documents, the steps, and the mistakes that sink applications. Rather talk it through first? Start from our public funding service in Italy.

Checklist: before you apply for a grant this autumn

1. Open the official page on the day you file. ON’s grant share ended with a notice on 30 June.
2. Check every requirement line by line, including your own age and job status for the youth measures.
3. If only expenses after the application count, as with Autoimpiego, hold off on orders and invoices.
4. Write the spending plan with quotes, plus a cash plan for the months before money arrives.
5. Set up portal access early: Invitalia’s personal area, Bandi e Servizi, the SIMEST portal.
6. File days before a deadline. 15:00 on 25 November means 15:00.
7. Need a guaranteed loan? See your bank before cash runs low.

This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. Rules and budgets change, sometimes overnight: check the official call or ask a professional before you apply.