Public funding
Plenty of provider websites promise grants of up to 80 per cent. For a business in Baden-Württemberg that is not true, and the programme quoted most often funds something other than what we do. Here is the position as we checked it, so you do not come into the conversation with the wrong expectation.
50 per cent
The BAFA consulting grant rate in Baden-Württemberg, not 80.
Around €1,500
The most that comes out of it, because eligible costs are capped.
31.12.2026
How long the directive runs in its current form.
The awkward part first
The BAFA programme subsidises consulting. Not the building, not running it, not the licences. Our work is mostly the building. The part of what we do that counts as consulting at all is the smaller part, and the check is free anyway.
Then there is the rate. The 80 per cent quoted so often applies in the eastern federal states. In Baden-Württemberg it is 50 per cent, and eligible consulting costs are capped. What is left is around €1,500, or up to roughly €1,750 for young companies. That is money, but it is not half the bill.
And one more thing rarely mentioned: go-digital, which used to be named for digitalisation projects, expired on 1 January 2025. Baden-Württemberg currently has no state-level digital bonus. Anyone counting on it is counting on a programme that no longer exists.
What actually exists
The application has to be filed before the consulting begins, and the consulting may only start after BAFA sends its notification. Start earlier and you lose the grant. At most five applications within the life of the directive, no more than two a year.
In this line, small and medium-sized businesses in trade and industry and in the liberal professions are eligible, so law and tax firms and engineering practices too, with a branch or place of business in Baden-Württemberg (according to the L-Bank information sheet). The application goes to L-Bank before the project starts, and the contract may only be signed after approval. Processing usually takes four to six weeks. The other voucher lines have conditions of their own, among other things on headcount and prior-year turnover. For building something, this is the route that matters more than the BAFA consulting grant.
Often named in the same breath as grants, but it is something entirely different. For a business that is going to invest anyway it can still be the cheapest route. Handled through your own bank.
For you that means two routes. Either we start straight away, without funding. Or you apply first, and we start after approval, usually four to six weeks later.
What is not funded
Our role
We are a technical implementation partner, not funding consultants. We are not listed as an approved consultant under any of these programmes, we do not file applications for you, we do not bill anything through grants and we take no referral commission from anyone. What we can supply is the description of the project an application needs: which workflow, what effort, what outcome. That comes out of the free check anyway.
Anyone who wants a binding answer on what their own business qualifies for should ask their chamber of commerce, L-Bank, or the federal funding database. That is where the current position is recorded, and it changes more often than a provider website keeps up with.
These details are as at 15 September 2026, those on the innovation vouchers as at 14 October 2026. Funding changes, directives expire, rates are adjusted. This is orientation, not funding advice. Only what the granting authority writes to you is binding.
A grant does not make a workflow worth automating that would not be worth it without one. So we start with the calculation. If it pays off, funding is a welcome discount. If it does not, we say so, and you save yourself the application as well.
