As of 1 January 2026, the administrative landscape for de-minimis aid in the EU has changed significantly. Businesses that receive public subsidies should understand how this new system works – and what it means in practice.
Background: The de-minimis Regulation
Under EU State aid law, Member States must in principle notify the European Commission before granting State aid to companies. However, an important exception exists under the so-called de-minimis rule.
The rationale is simple: very small amounts of state aid are considered too limited to distort competition or affect trade between Member States. These amounts can therefore be granted without prior notification or approval by the European Commission.
Under Commission Regulation 2023/2831, the current regular de-minimis ceiling is €300,000 per undertaking over any rolling three-year period. Specific thresholds apply for the agricultural and fisheries and aquaculture sectors and for Services of General Economic Interest.
Key points to keep in mind:
- The €300,000 ceiling for regular de-minimis aid apply per “undertaking”, including all affiliated entities controlled by a same ultimate parent company – not per individual legal entity. The same principle applies to the de-minimis SGEI ceiling.
- All public de-minimis aid of the same EU Member State count toward the same threshold. In Belgium, this includes subsidies from municipal, regional and federal authorities combined.
- The three-year reference period is calculated on a rolling basis. For each new aid decision, authorities must look back at the total de-minimis aid granted during the previous three years.
What Changed on 1 January 2026?
Until the end of 2025, Belgian public authorities operated under a relatively light administrative approach. Before granting de-minimis aid, authorities could rely on a declaration on honour signed by the beneficiary confirming that the ceiling had not been exceeded. The system depended largely on the accuracy of the company’s own reporting.
As of 1 January 2026, this approach has been replaced by a far more robust and centralised system with a registration obligation for both regular de-minimis aid and de-minimis aid for Services of General Economic Interest (SGEI).
The New Registration Obligation
Public authorities must now:
- Register every de-minimis aid (regular and SGEI) award in a central EU database – the e-AID register – within 20 working days of granting the aid.
- Before awarding new de-minimis aid, they must verify compliance proactively by consulting the e-AID register and checking whether the threshold has been reached for that beneficiary.
This creates a transparent, EU-wide overview of de-minimis aid granted to each undertaking. In practice, public authorities across Member States will now have real-time visibility over the aid received by a company during the relevant three-year period and will not grant aid that would push a company above the €300,000 ceiling for regular de-minimis aid (or €750.000 for SGEI de-minimis aid).
What Should Businesses Do?
Although the new obligations fall primarily on public authorities, businesses should not adopt a passive stance. Companies that regularly receive public support – whether financial grants, guarantees, tax advantages or in-kind contributions – should take proactive steps.
1. Monitor Aid at Group Level
Track all de-minimis aid received across the entire economic group. The ceiling applies at the level of the “undertaking”, which may thus include parent and subsidiary companies, and any other affiliated companies/non-profit associations under the control of the same ultimate parent company.
Failure to take the broader group into account may lead to unintended breaches.
2. Explore Alternative Legal Bases
If the de-minimis ceiling is close to being reached, alternative structuring options may be available:
- Structuring part of the public contribution as a genuine market-conform transaction which may fall outside State aid rules altogether.
- Assessing whether the measure can qualify under other compatibility frameworks, such as the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER) or the Service of General Economic Interest legislation (SGEI de-minimis or SGEI Decision).
Early legal analysis is essential where larger funding rounds are involved.
