Luxembourg co-funds digitalisation and AI adoption for small businesses through a scheme called SME Packages, run by the Ministry of the Economy with the Chamber of Commerce and the Chamber of Skilled Trades and Crafts. It is the successor to the programme most people still call Fit 4 Digital.
On 11 March 2025 the scheme gained two new pillars, one of them dedicated to artificial intelligence. The numbers, as published on guichet.public.lu:
Two details change how this feels in practice. The money arrives as a reimbursement after the work is finished, so you fund the project first and are paid back. And the process starts with a mandatory free appointment at the House of Entrepreneurship, not with a form. Both are covered below.
Most people arrive looking for "the AI grant". There are several, and they are not interchangeable.
The one you probably want. It funds putting an AI tool into your actual processes: assessing where you stand, identifying what is worth automating, and implementing a solution that fits. 70% of costs, projects of €3,000 to €25,000. Added in March 2025.
The original pillar, and still the right one for groundwork rather than intelligence: a website, digital marketing, a management or invoicing system. Same 70% and same €3,000 to €25,000 range. If your real problem is that your data lives in nine spreadsheets, this is often the honest first step before any AI project makes sense.
Also added in March 2025, on the same terms. Covers assessing your security posture, NIS2 compliance, and putting protective tooling in place. Relevant here because an AI system that reads your internal documents inherits every weakness of the place those documents are stored.
Run by Luxinnovation. Eligible costs of €10,000 to €200,000, co-funded at 50% for small and medium enterprises and 30% for large ones, and it does not require SME status. The catch is that it funds the consultant's analysis, not the build: assessment, use cases, technology and compliance review, roadmap. Right when you do not yet know what to build; wrong when you already do.
Across the SME Packages pillars the structural conditions are the same. You need a business permit issued by the Ministry of the Economy, a registered office in Luxembourg, and you must meet the European SME definition: fewer than 250 staff, and either turnover of €50 million or less or a balance sheet total of €43 million or less. For a broader picture of the local landscape, see our guide to AI in Luxembourg, or the audience pages for AI for Luxembourg SMEs, solopreneurs, and NGOs.
The AI package is written around three things: evaluating where your organisation currently stands on AI, identifying initiatives that are simple enough to actually implement, and integrating an existing AI solution adapted to your needs. The emphasis on existing solutions is deliberate. This is not research funding, and it is not there to build you a novel model.
In practice that suits small organisations well, because the highest-value AI work in a small team is almost never novel. It is connecting tools that already exist to processes that already run: a document pipeline that files things correctly, an assistant that drafts from your own material rather than from the open internet, a workflow that stops a person retyping the same information into three systems.
What it does not cover is worth being equally clear about. The €25,000 ceiling is on the project, not per year of running it: ongoing subscriptions, hosting, and model usage after the project ends are yours. Nor does the grant cover your own staff's time, and it will not reimburse anything you started before the Ministry decided. VAT sits outside the eligible amount entirely.
That last point about running costs is the one we would push hardest on. A funded project that leaves you on a per-seat foreign SaaS subscription has shifted your spending, not reduced it. Architecture built on EU-hosted infrastructure and open-weight models, with your data staying under your control, costs about the same to build and considerably less to keep, which matters a great deal once the 70% stops applying.
Take a twelve-person firm that receives a steady flow of documents (quotes, delivery notes, certificates) and files them by hand. The project is a pipeline that reads each incoming document, classifies it, extracts the fields that matter, files it where it belongs, and flags anything it is unsure about for a person to check.
Illustrative figures
Project quoted at €14,000 excluding VAT
State reimbursement at 70%: €9,800
Net cost to the firm: €4,200
Three honest caveats sit under those numbers. The firm pays the full €14,000 first and is reimbursed after the work is evaluated, so it needs that money available for the duration. The figures are illustrative: your quote depends entirely on scope, and the Ministry decides on your file, not on an example page. And the project has a life after the grant: hosting, model usage, and maintenance continue, which is the cost most people forget to plan for.
The reason we lead with a document pipeline rather than something more impressive is that it is the kind of project that survives contact with a real small team. It has a clear before and after, it can be measured in hours returned per week, and it fits comfortably inside the €25,000 ceiling.
The order matters more than the paperwork. Doing step five before step four is the usual way people lose the funding.
With the House of Entrepreneurship at the Chamber of Commerce, or with the eHandwierk service at the Chamber of Skilled Trades and Crafts if you are a craft business. It is free, it is not optional, and it is where your current situation gets assessed and priority actions identified.
The quote has to land between €3,000 and €25,000 excluding VAT. A quote that is too vague is the most common reason a file stalls, which is why scoping the project properly before this point pays for itself.
You are not filling this in alone. The adviser you met at the pre-analysis helps assemble the file that goes to the Ministry of the Economy.
This is the pitfall worth repeating. Beginning the work before the Ministry has decided puts the funding at risk. Treat the wait as part of the project plan rather than an interruption to it.
The work runs as scoped. Keep the invoices and the documentation clean: they are what the reimbursement rests on.
A closing meeting reviews how it went and what it saved you. You pay the provider, and the 70% comes back afterwards.
Crystallized Intelligence does not currently deliver grant-funded projects under SME Packages. The scheme runs through its own provider process, and we are in the process of becoming qualified. If a funded package is the right route for you, the first move is the free pre-analysis appointment, and you do not need us to make it.
What we do is the work that sits either side of the funding, none of which depends on the scheme:
Our core differentiator is our methodology: a preference for EU-hosted infrastructure, open-weight models where they do the job, open-source tooling, and your data under your own control. This keeps the bill low after co-funding has been spent. It also reinforces your team's protection from potential GDPR problems, foreign threats, and other privacy related problems in today's complex technology world.
Book a pre-discovery callIf you hold a business permit from the Ministry of the Economy and your registered office is in Luxembourg, you meet the two structural conditions. A one-person company is an SME under the European definition: the thresholds are ceilings, not floors.
The practical obstacle is rarely your size. It is the €3,000 minimum project cost, and the fact that you pay the provider in full and are reimbursed afterwards. That means carrying the whole amount for the length of the process. For a very small operation that cash-flow gap matters more than the paperwork, so it is worth planning for before you commit. The pre-analysis appointment with the House of Entrepreneurship is free, and it is the right place to test whether your situation qualifies before you spend anything.
Not as a standalone compliance project: the packages fund implementing an AI tool, not legal or regulatory work on its own. Compliance built into a funded implementation is a different matter, and worth raising at the pre-analysis stage.
The distinction that matters is whether you are buying an AI capability or buying advice about rules. SME Packages – AI is aimed at getting a working tool into your processes. If transparency notices, an AI-use policy, or a system inventory are part of putting that tool live responsibly, they sit inside the project rather than beside it. Readiness work you need regardless of any funded project (because the transparency obligations became live on 2 August 2026) is ordinary paid work, and usually small. Our page on AI Act readiness in Luxembourg covers what actually applies to a small organisation.
There is no published statutory deadline. Plan in months, not weeks: the pre-analysis appointment, then assembling a quote, then the Ministry's decision, and no eligible work can start before that decision.
The single most common way to lose the funding is to start early. If you sign with a provider and begin work before the Ministry has decided, you risk the whole application. Build the waiting time into your own timeline from the start rather than treating it as a delay imposed on you. The adviser you meet at the pre-analysis will give you a realistic current estimate; that estimate moves with how busy the scheme is, which is why we do not publish a number here.
The packages are separate pillars (AI, Digital, Cybersecurity, Service, Sustainability), and an organisation can use more than one over time. State aid rules cap what you can receive in total, so the answer is scheme-by-scheme, not a blanket yes.
Two limits bite in practice. The first is that the same expense cannot be funded twice; you cannot present one invoice to two schemes. The second is the de minimis ceiling on total public aid to a single undertaking over a rolling period, which is a cumulative cap across everything you have received. Both are questions for your adviser with your actual figures in hand. What you can safely assume is that using one package does not disqualify you from another later.
Then SME Packages is the wrong instrument. Fit 4 AI, run by Luxinnovation, covers eligible costs from €10,000 to €200,000, but it funds the consultant analysis, not the build.
Fit 4 AI co-funds 50% of eligible costs for small and medium enterprises and 30% for large ones, and unlike SME Packages it does not require you to be an SME. The trade-off is scope: it pays for the assessment, use-case identification, technology and compliance review, and the implementation roadmap. The implementation itself is yours to finance. For an organisation that genuinely does not yet know what to build, that sequencing is sensible rather than restrictive.
The scheme runs through a defined process rather than an open market: your provider is chosen and the quote agreed as part of the pre-analysis, and providers are expected to be recognised for the package concerned. Confirm any specific provider with your adviser before committing.
We are explicit about this because it affects us. Crystallized Intelligence is not yet a funded delivery provider under SME Packages; we are in the process of becoming qualified, and we will say so here when that is complete. In the meantime, what we do is independent of the scheme: helping you work out what is actually worth building, scoping it in enough detail to price, and handling AI Act readiness, none of which depends on provider accreditation. If a funded package is the right route for you, we will say so and point you at the pre-analysis.
Usually not under SME Packages, which is built around holding a business permit and carrying out an economic activity. An ASBL without commercial activity generally falls outside it, though the picture depends on your specific status.
This is a real gap, and it is worth saying plainly rather than leaving non-profits to discover it at the appointment. Funding for the non-profit sector in Luxembourg tends to run through different channels (foundation grants, project funding from the ministry covering your field, or European programmes) rather than through economic-development aid. Where that route is closed, the cost question shifts to what the thing you build costs to run: open-source tooling and infrastructure you control keep the bill low once a grant has been spent, rather than committing you to per-seat subscriptions you have to fund again every year. Our page for NGOs and human rights organisations covers how we work with the sector.
Every figure on this page comes from an official Luxembourg government source:
Funding figures last reviewed 4 August 2026. Rates, ceilings, and conditions change: confirm the current terms on guichet.public.lu or at your pre-analysis appointment before committing to anything. This page is practical guidance, not a guarantee of eligibility.
That is the normal starting point. A free 20-minute call to work out what is actually worth building in your organisation, and whether a funded package is the right route for it.
Book a pre-discovery call