Luxembourg startup funding: grants for the self-employed

Luxembourg startup funding for the self-employed is, first, the Ministry of the Economy’s SME aids under the law of 9 August 2018: grants of 20% to 70% of what a small business spends, if it holds a business permit, its activity is not excluded and it usually applies before committing. The law was reformed on 15 September 2026.

Can you get a business grant in Luxembourg?

The Ministry of the Economy’s SME aids go only to a business with a business permit whose activity is not on the law’s exclusion list; size sets the rate, and a SARL changes neither.

Three filters in the law of 9 August 2018, as the law of 22 July 2026 reformed it from 15 September 2026, decide in this order:

1. Your business holds a business permit (autorisation d’établissement) issued under the law of 2 September 2011, as article 1 requires. No permit yet? The permit, the legal form and the registrations come first; Becoming self-employed takes them in order.
2. Your activity is not on the annex’s exclusion list. Its first part rules out shopping centres, cable operators, solariums, film production, show organisers, tobacco and e-cigarette shops, fuel retailers, property developers, syndics, property managers and estate agents, the liberal professions except architects and engineers, accountancy firms, « experts comptables et de conseil », fiduciaries, and buildings usable as housing. Its second part rules transport auxiliaries, training centres, wellness centres, security firms and taxi and chauffeur firms out of every aid but the one for new technologies.
3. Your size sets the rate. Under article 2, a micro enterprise employs fewer than 10 persons and has annual revenue or a balance sheet of at most €2 million; a small one, fewer than 50 persons and €10 million. The rates below are for micro and small enterprises.

Article 3 leaves aid for fishing, aquaculture, primary agriculture and export-related activities outside the law, and a company in difficulty out, with exceptions such as young enterprises.

Most liberal professions never reach the list, because they hold no business permit: a lawyer needs the Ministry of Justice’s authorisation, a doctor, dentist, vet or pharmacist the Ministry of Health’s, says Guichet.lu’s page on access to a profession. The nine that take a permit are on the Ministry of Higher Education and Research’s list: architect, interior architect, landscape architect, accountant, industrial-property adviser, expert-comptable, surveyor, construction consulting engineer and urban planner. The annex excludes them, architects and engineers excepted; liberal professions and the business permit explains the category.

Your permit decides, not how your work sounds. A copywriter, journalist or translator working in their own name needs no business permit, Guichet.lu says, so gets none of these aids; a graphic workshop is a craft, on list C of the 2011 law; IT and management consulting take the commercial permit, the same Guichet.lu page says. Neither the law nor Guichet.lu explains what the annex’s « experts comptables et de conseil » covers: if you consult, ask the Ministry before you count on an aid.

A SARL changes none of this: the law’s entreprise is any entity carrying on an economic activity, whatever its legal form (article 2), and the annex lists activities.

Which grant fits what you are paying for?

Under the 2018 law, a micro or small enterprise gets 20% on equipment, 30% on new technologies or a new company’s first investment, 50% on an adviser or a fair stand and 70% on an SME Package.

Starting your first business in commerce or craft? The €12,000 Primo-Création aid is separate, with its own law, the law of 5 July 2023, and its own rules.

The 2018 law sets the Ministry’s rates (articles 4 to 6 and 10); the two staff aids are the INFPC’s and the ADEM’s:

Under the same articles, a medium enterprise gets 10% on investment, modernisation and replacement, 20% on hygiene and new technologies and 40% on the environment.

Equipment counts only if it is for exclusively professional use, costs at least €750 a unit and is not a vehicle, under article 2 of the law; land and buildings count only for craft, industrial or accommodation use. Replacing existing machines is not eligible for investment aid, Guichet.lu’s investment aid page says. The Chambre des Métiers wants at least one unit price of €750 excluding VAT on each quote: three tablets at €350 do not count.

The SME Packages are five themed programmes, each with a Guichet.lu page: Digital, AI, Cybersecurity, Service and Sustainability. They ask for a business permit, SME size and a registered office in Luxembourg, and none for an employee.

A pre-analysis by the House of Entrepreneurship or the Chambre des Métiers comes first and helps with the application (the Luxembourg House of Cybersecurity does it for Cybersecurity, and the Chamber of Commerce’s House of Sustainability or the Chambre des Métiers for Sustainability). You choose the provider; the 70% is paid on its final bill, €17,500 at most, as the parliamentary committee’s report on the reform puts it.

Whether a business on the exclusion list can use the Packages is unsettled: article 1 keeps listed activities out of the law’s aids, but article 10 leaves the Packages out of the annex’s reach, and the committee’s report says that was meant to cover excluded businesses. Guichet.lu’s Packages pages predate the reform: ask at the pre-analysis. Guichet.lu also lists a Starter Kit RSE, a fixed €5,000 for a 3.5-day CSR consultancy, through either chamber.

The consultancy aid never pays for running costs such as tax, financial or legal advice or advertising, nor for training (article 5); the fair aid covers renting, setting up and running the stand (article 6).

INFPC co-financing is for staff with an employment contract and Luxembourg social security affiliation, says Guichet.lu’s continuing training page, so never for a sole trader’s own training. The State pays 15% of the year’s training investment as taxable aid, INFPC says, and article L. 542-13 of the Labour Code adds 20 points on the wage cost of participants without a recognised diploma and under ten years’ service, or over 45. The claim is due within five months of the financial year’s end (article L. 542-11), on paper with an Excel file on a CD or USB key, lifelong-learning.lu says.

The hiring aid for older jobseekers refunds your share of social security contributions for two years if the new employee is 45 to 49, until retirement from 50, Guichet.lu says. Declare the vacancy to the ADEM first; the request follows within six months of the hire.

Guichet.lu’s Fit 4 Start page says the Ministry pays a startup in digital, health technologies or space, or the field a call names, up to €150,000 without taking equity, in tranches of €50,000, €80,000 and €20,000. You need not have incorporated to apply, but the aid goes to a Luxembourg commercial company holding a business permit and at least €15,000 of capital paid up in cash, the programme’s aid guidelines say. Luxinnovation’s rules require a team of at least two, one of them full time, so a solo founder cannot apply.

When and how do you apply?

Apply on MyGuichet.lu before you sign the first order or start the work; only replacing equipment may be claimed after you have paid. Applications now go online only, Guichet.lu announced.

1. Open a business eSpace on MyGuichet.lu. Guichet.lu’s help page asks for a 13-digit Luxembourg national identification number and a LuxTrust product, a Luxembourg eID or an eIDAS means from another European country.
2. File before the works start. Under articles 2 and 15 of the law, the written application must come before the first legally binding order of equipment or any commitment that makes the investment irreversible; Guichet.lu’s general terms and conditions allow no binding commitment before it.
3. A replacement is the exception: you file after paying, at most twice a calendar year for up to €100,000 of investment each, no later than a year after the money was paid out, not the invoice date, as Guichet.lu’s page on miscellaneous investments says.
4. Send the dossier article 15 lists: a description of the business and a signed chart of its owners down to the beneficial owners, the closed annual accounts of the last two financial years, bank details, the project with its dates and costs, a financing plan showing your own funds, the aid you ask for and, for a de minimis aid (small aid that counts, per business, against a ceiling over three years; here an aid for miscellaneous investments or an SME Package), a sworn statement on the other de minimis aid you hold. You also let the Ministry check with the tax authorities (ACD, AED) and the CCSS that your taxes and contributions are paid. The Chambre des Métiers adds a business plan for a business under three years old applying for investment aid.
5. The Ministry acknowledges receipt within 15 days and names any missing document. It decides within three months of the complete file, a period it may extend by three months; no decision by then counts as tacit consent within the law’s conditions (article 16bis).
6. The grant is paid once the project is complete, with advance payments possible as it progresses (article 12). Claim it within 12 months of the project end date in the decision, or lose it; on a written, reasoned request made before then, the Ministry may extend the period by up to 12 months for reasons beyond your control, under article 14 and Guichet.lu’s payment page.
7. Keep the investment. Sell it or stop using it as agreed within five years of the award, 30 years for real estate, and you lose the aid and repay it with legal interest within three months of the Ministry’s decision (article 18). Stop your activity within five years of the award and you tell the Ministry at once (article 19).

Works start with the first binding order, not with the delivery or the invoice. A quote you sign before filing can cost you the aid.

Guichet.lu’s investment aid page lists the Ministry’s contact, the Direction générale Aides d’État et financement aux entreprises: info.aide.pme@eco.etat.lu, (+352) 247 74 704.

How much can you receive in total?

In total, each aid pays a fixed share of its eligible costs, never under €1,000 for a micro or small enterprise outside the SME Packages. Your de minimis aids together stop at €300,000 over any three years, or at €200,000 over three fiscal years once Primo-Création, Fit 4 Start or other aid under Luxembourg’s de minimis law is among them.

Article 1 of the law sets that floor for a micro or small enterprise and a €5,000 floor for a medium or large one. Two aids are capped: an SME Package pays at most €17,500, and an environmental project €50,000.

Aids on different costs combine with any other State aid; on the same costs, only up to the highest intensity or amount that applies (article 17).

Of the SME law’s aids, only article 10’s are de minimis aid: the aid for miscellaneous investments, the SME Packages among them. The investment, consultancy and fair aids fall under the EU’s general block exemption regulation, which the law implements, Guichet.lu’s general terms say. Primo-Création, the SNCI’s zero-rate loan and Fit 4 Start, which its aid guidelines place under Luxembourg’s de minimis law, are de minimis aid too.

Article 17 lets an article 10 aid combine with other de minimis aid, even above its own rate, as long as all of it is de minimis aid and stays within the Regulation’s ceiling.

Two texts set the ceilings: Regulation (EU) 2023/2831, which article 17 of the SME law names, and Luxembourg’s law of 20 December 2019, which the law of 5 July 2023 applies to Primo-Création.

No text says what happens when a later aid for miscellaneous investments would take such a total past €200,000: ask the Ministry before you combine them.

What support is left if no grant fits?

If no grant fits, your own training still counts as a deductible operating expense when the business alone causes it, and the State compensates a self-employed person’s individual training leave.

Article 45 of the income tax law makes every expense caused exclusively by the business a deductible operating expense. INFPC co-financing stays closed to your own training.

The State pays a self-employed person’s compensation during individual training leave, Guichet.lu says, if you have been affiliated to Luxembourg social security for at least two years and are professionally domiciled and active in Luxembourg; you ask two months ahead. The portal lifelong-learning.lu lists the training aids for individuals and a catalogue of courses.

The House of Entrepreneurship gives free expert guidance on funding options and public aid, with workshops: financing@houseofentrepreneurship.lu, (+352) 42 39 39 600. The Chambre des Métiers’ aid finder gives craft businesses and founders an overview of the aids they may claim, with an adviser named on each.

Is there funding that is not a grant?

Yes: SNCI, a public bank, co-finances Luxembourg companies through partner banks or directly, and the Mutualité de Cautionnement can guarantee a bank loan when your own guarantees fall short.

SNCI calls itself a public banking institution financing commercial companies based in Luxembourg, SMEs in particular. proStart is its programme for starting a business, beside proDevelop, proInnovate and proTransfer, and its zero-interest Competitiveness and Sustainability Loan is de minimis aid, so it shares the de minimis ceiling with an aid for miscellaneous investments. SNCI names commercial companies, not sole traders: ask before you count on it. You apply through a partner bank or directly, after a first consultation at credits@snci.lu.

The SME law also lets the Ministry grant an aid as a recoverable advance, a guarantee or an interest subsidy rather than a capital grant, and pay some, the investment aid among them, as a loan through a bank (articles 11 and 12).

The House of Entrepreneurship names the Mutualité de Cautionnement as a guarantor of your bank financing when your own guarantees fall short.

Frequently asked questions

What business grants can a self-employed person get in Luxembourg?

A business with a business permit and an activity off the exclusion list gets the Ministry's SME aids. Under the law of 9 August 2018 a micro or small enterprise receives 20% on equipment, 30% on new technologies or a new company's first investment, 50% on an adviser or a fair stand, and 70% on an SME Package.

Can I get a business grant without a business permit?

Not under the SME law: the law of 9 August 2018 reserves its aids for businesses holding a business permit, and a copywriter or translator in their own name, a lawyer or a doctor holds none. Your own training can still be a deductible operating expense, and the State compensates a self-employed person's individual training leave.

Do I apply before or after I buy the equipment?

Before. Under the law of 9 August 2018 the written application must precede the first legally binding order, so file on MyGuichet.lu before you sign the quote. Only replacing existing equipment is claimed after paying: at most two requests a calendar year, up to €100,000 of investment each, within a year of the payment.

How long does the Ministry take to decide?

The Ministry of the Economy acknowledges your application within 15 days and decides within three months of the complete file, a period it may extend by three months. Under article 16bis of the law of 9 August 2018, no decision by the end of that period counts as tacit consent, within the law's conditions.

Is there startup funding that is not a grant?

Yes. SNCI describes itself as a public bank that co-finances Luxembourg companies through partner banks or directly, with proStart for starting a business and a zero-interest loan that counts as de minimis aid. The House of Entrepreneurship names the Mutualité de Cautionnement as a guarantor when your own guarantees fall short. SNCI names commercial companies, so ask it first.