GBER and de minimis: the state aid rules behind German and EU grants

The GBER, or General Block Exemption Regulation (Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014), is the EU rulebook that lets governments grant State aid without asking the European Commission first. A grant that misses one of its conditions counts as unlawful aid that must be repaid. The current text runs until 31 December 2026. De minimis aid is a separate regime under Regulation (EU) 2023/2831, capped at €300,000 per company group over three years.

What is the GBER, and how does it decide your grant?

The General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER) is the EU rulebook that declares listed types of State aid compatible with the internal market. If a grant meets its conditions, a ministry or development bank can award it without notifying the European Commission. German programme guidelines call it the Allgemeine Gruppenfreistellungsverordnung (AGVO).

Block exemption has become the norm. According to the Commission, the GBER covered 6,509 measures in 2024, 69% of all active State aid measures, up from 41% in 2014. Without it, each German subsidy scheme would need Commission approval under Article 108(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

Each GBER grant must meet the common conditions in Chapter I of the regulation. Two matter most to applicants: the incentive effect, which requires you to apply before work starts, and the limits on combining aid. Firms in difficulty or facing an outstanding Commission recovery order are excluded.

Very large awards still need Commission approval. For R&D projects, the GBER's notification threshold is €25 million per undertaking and project for experimental development. It rises to €35 million for industrial research and €55 million for fundamental research.

The 2023 amendment extended the GBER to 31 December 2026 and cut the reporting threshold for individual awards from €500,000 to €100,000. Awards above that threshold appear in the Commission's public Transparency Award Module (TAM).

GBER or de minimis: which rulebook is your grant using?

Under EU State aid rules, a German business grant usually runs under one of two rulebooks. The programme guideline (Förderrichtlinie) or your funding notice names it, so search the document for "AGVO" or "De-minimis". The legal basis decides your ceiling and whether difficulty status excludes you.

GRW (Gemeinschaftsaufgabe "Verbesserung der regionalen Wirtschaftsstruktur"), Germany's federal-state investment grant for assisted regions, shows both rulebooks in one programme. D assisted areas are its lower-rate regions. There, large firms get only de minimis aid, up to €300,000 within three years, according to the federal funding database (Förderdatenbank). Small and medium-sized firms in D areas get block-exempted aid.

The Forschungszulage, Germany's R&D tax allowance, is GBER aid for companies. The share paid on a sole proprietor's own R&D hours counts as de minimis aid, as our guide to the de-minimis rules for the research allowance explains.

How much can the GBER pay? Rates, company size and region

The GBER caps each grant by aid intensity: the share of eligible costs that public money may cover. Smaller firms get higher caps, and so do projects in C assisted areas. For R&D projects, Article 25 allows 50% of eligible costs for industrial research and 25% for experimental development before bonuses.

Source: GBER Article 25(5) to (7). Industrial research and experimental development can add 15 percentage points for effective collaboration or wide dissemination and 5 points in C assisted areas, up to 80%.

Company size follows the European Commission's definition of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). A medium-sized enterprise has fewer than 250 staff and turnover up to €50 million or a balance sheet up to €43 million. A small enterprise has fewer than 50 staff and up to €10 million in turnover or balance sheet. Group figures may count, so a corporate investor can change your SME status, as our guide to the Mittelstand and the EU SME definition shows.

Under GRW, the regional investment grant, location matters too. The base ceiling for all public investment aid combined ranges from 10% to 35% of eligible investment, according to the Förderdatenbank:

Source: Förderdatenbank of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE), GRW entry. Weaker C areas: GDP per head at or below the EU-27 average, or unemployment at or above it. C-area ceilings rise by 5 points where the population fell by more than 10% between 2009 and 2018, and further in C areas bordering an A area.

In our case study on GRW funding for a new production plant, a medium-sized clean-tech manufacturer received about €2.5 million on roughly €10 million of eligible investment. That is about 25%, the ceiling for a medium-sized firm in its C area.

Undertaking in difficulty: the test that excludes loss-making firms

An undertaking in difficulty, Unternehmen in Schwierigkeiten (UiS) in German, is a company that fails at least one of five tests in Article 2(18) of the GBER. Such a firm is excluded from most aid under the General Block Exemption Regulation. A loss-making company can still pass.

Source: GBER Article 2(18). SMEs that have existed for less than three years are exempt from both capital-loss tests.

The three-year exemption for young SMEs turns year three into a cliff for loss-making start-ups. Common start-up financing instruments do not help a firm pass the capital test.

At a European Commission reality check on 27 March 2026, funding and audit authorities raised problems with the test. Convertible loans, quasi-equity, long-term subordinated loans and intra-group guarantees are not captured by the definition (PDF). The authorities called group-level checks the hardest part in practice.

If your company is close to the capital-loss threshold, act before your status is assessed. A capital increase helps, as does converting shareholder loans into the capital reserve. A new shareholder loan does not. According to the Commission's 2024 GBER training material, an undertaking already in difficulty can still use de minimis aid and GBER start-up aid schemes (PDF).

Quick check before any application:

• Older than three years, or not an SME?
• Losses, net of reserves, above half of subscribed capital plus share premium?
• Insolvency proceedings open, or possible at creditors' request?
• Rescue loan unpaid, or restructuring plan still running?
• Same answers for your parent and sister companies?

The Forschungszulage is GBER aid, so an undertaking in difficulty cannot claim it. Our research allowance consulting starts with the difficulty check: we review your last balance sheets against the five tests and suggest fixes. We then prepare the application to the Bescheinigungsstelle Forschungszulage (BSFZ), which certifies R&D projects, and the claim at your tax office. The fee is success-based: 10% of funding up to €500,000 a year and 5% above, payable only after payout.

How much de minimis aid can you receive, and who keeps count?

Under Regulation (EU) 2023/2831, the de minimis aid granted per Member State to a single undertaking may not exceed €300,000 over any period of three years (PDF). A single undertaking is your company plus every company linked to it by control. German funders keep count in eAIR, the European Commission's register, but you must still declare earlier awards.

De minimis aid is aid small enough that the EU treats it as having no effect on competition or trade. It needs no Commission approval. The three-year window rolls. Each new award is checked against all de minimis aid the group received in Germany in the previous three years, whatever the programme is called.

From 1 January 2026, the 2023 de minimis rules require German funders to enter each award in eAIR within 20 working days of the grant. December 2025 guidance from the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labour and Tourism adds that companies still submit a de minimis declaration until 31 December 2028 (PDF). It also notes that eAIR does not currently check the €300,000 ceiling.

Until the German transition ends, keep your own list of all de minimis awards across the group. The eAIR register was meant to end that self-reporting. Margrethe Vestager, then the European Commission's Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy, commented on the new rules in December 2023. She said the register would reduce the burden on companies, in particular SMEs, because "they will no longer need to self-monitor compliance".

Can you stack GBER aid, de minimis aid and EU grants?

GBER aid, de minimis aid and EU funding can be combined if no eligible cost is funded above the highest permitted aid intensity. Awards for different eligible costs can sit side by side. De minimis aid on the same costs counts towards that ceiling.

The Commission's 2024 GBER training material rules out stacking on the same eligible costs above the highest ceiling, including with EU aid. In practice, keep one cost ledger per funding source. Germany's Forschungszulage can run beside an EU grant on the same project, but not on the same costs, as our EU funding guide explains.

Incentive effect: apply before your project starts

Most GBER grants require a written application before work on the project starts. Without it, the aid has no incentive effect and cannot be granted. According to the Commission's 2024 GBER training material, the application must contain at least six items of information:

• company name and size
• project description, with start and end dates
• project location
• list of project costs
• type of aid, such as a grant or a loan
• amount of public funding needed

For investments, work starts with the first construction works or the first legally binding order for equipment, whichever comes first. Under the GBER, buying land, obtaining permits and running preliminary feasibility studies do not count as a start. In our GRW case study, the clean-tech manufacturer filed before signing any binding supply or works contract, which kept the incentive effect intact. Our GRW funding consulting can take you through the application.

The Forschungszulage works differently. Tax schemes in force before a project starts meet the incentive-effect rule automatically. Projects already running can still qualify, as our guide to claiming the research allowance retroactively explains.

What changes when the GBER expires on 31 December 2026?

The current GBER expires on 31 December 2026, and the European Commission plans a successor from 1 January 2027. Its February 2026 draft would open R&D and innovation aid to certain innovative start-ups in difficulty. It would also let larger firms use SME rates for small R&D or environmental investment aid.

On 6 October 2026, the Commission's review page still showed adoption planned for the end of 2026, so everything below is draft. The Commission's explanatory memorandum to the February 2026 draft (PDF) lists these changes for applicants:

Source: Commission explanatory memorandum, February 2026 (draft).

The February 2026 draft keeps today's difficulty test. The Commission plans to align it with its review of the rescue and restructuring guidelines. At the March 2026 reality check, authorities noted the exception for innovative firms operating for under 10 years. They regretted that it covers only R&D and innovation aid.

What to do now:

• Check any 2026 application against today's text and difficulty test, which funders apply until 31 December 2026.
• Watch the final text for the R&D and innovation exception if your start-up fails the capital-loss test.
• Compare the programme guideline with the final text before applying if your project starts in 2027.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Confirm the details with the funding body or an adviser before you apply.