The digitalise your SME scheme is a non-repayable grant co-financed under the European Regional Development Fund 2021 to 2027. It part-finances investment by Maltese and Gozitan small and medium-sized enterprises in digital technology, and it is administered by the Measures and Support Division as the Intermediate Body. Full scheme details are published on fondi.eu. 

The scheme has run in two calls so far. Call 1 opened on 1 March 2025 and remained open until 30 June 2026, giving Maltese SMEs their first round of EU-funded grants for digital investment. Building on that first call, Call 2 launched on 1 July 2026 with a considerably larger €15 million budget, a higher minimum grant threshold, and additional funding set aside for projects that include an Artificial Intelligence component. The sections below set out exactly what that means for a new applicant. 

Eligibility follows the standard EU definition of an SME: fewer than 250 employees, and turnover of no more than €50 million or a balance sheet total of no more than €43 million. Both micro and small businesses qualify alongside medium-sized firms, and each applicant submits its own application rather than as part of a consortium. Certain sectors, including primary agriculture, are excluded under EU state aid rules. 

Call 2 opened for applications on 1 July 2026 and changes the scheme in three ways that matter to applicants. First, the budget has tripled from €5 million to €15 million. Second, a dedicated Artificial Intelligence top-up now sits alongside the base grant. Projects that include a qualifying AI component can claim an extra €107,000 on top of the standard €128,400, taking the maximum combined support to €235,400. 

Third, the minimum grant has risen from €10,000 under Call 1 to €25,000 under Call 2. In practice, this rules out very small purchases and pushes the scheme towards genuine digitalisation projects rather than one-off equipment upgrades. Because applicants still cover half the cost themselves in Malta, a project now needs a total value of around €50,000 to clear that threshold comfortably. 

The differences between the two calls matter most to businesses that already looked at the scheme once and are deciding whether to apply again. The table below sets out the changes side by side.

The most consequential change is the AI component. Call 1 offered a 10% aid intensity bonus for projects touching Key Digital Technologies such as Cyber Security, IoT, AI, Big Data, Cloud and Quantum, but there was no separate AI allowance. Call 2 keeps that 10% bonus and adds a distinct AI budget line worth up to €107,000, funded in partnership with the Malta Digital Innovation Authority, or MDIA. 

The preferential 60% and 70% start-up aid rates available under Call 1 no longer apply. Call 2 retains specific definitions and financial-capacity provisions for qualifying start-ups, but the standard aid intensities are 50% in Malta and 60% in Gozo. 

Maltese and Gozitan micro, small and medium-sized enterprises may apply if they operate in an eligible economic activity and meet all scheme conditions. Two further checks apply to every application. The de minimis ceiling caps total state aid at €300,000 over any rolling three-year period, and a separate need test requires total project cost to be at least 2% of the applicant’s net assets. Projects that fail either check are rejected outright, and projects that are unusually large relative to net assets may need a bank guarantee. 

The scheme funds capital investment in digitalisation rather than day-to-day running costs. Eligible expenditure includes: 

• Commercial off-the-shelf and bespoke software 
• Hardware such as computers, servers, tablets and IoT devices 
• Cloud services, up to a two-year subscription 
• Cybersecurity systems 
• Analytics and Big Data tools 
• Installation and training tied to the new technology 

All purchases must have a useful life beyond three years and must be paid for during the project period. 

For the AI top-up specifically, eligible costs are more tightly defined: staff time working directly on the AI solution, capped at 25% of the €100,000 AI allowance, together with AI software, integration services, and any new hardware or cloud capacity the AI component genuinely requires. 

Before scoping a project, it is worth estimating the ROI and impact of the project to extract the most value from the funding. For companies wondering what project that would be, Eunoia offers an AI and data opportunity assessment. 

Call 2 opened on 1 July 2026, with the first cut-off date falling on 31 July 2026. Subsequent cut-offs follow roughly every 15 days: 17 August, 18 and 30 September, 16 and 30 October, 13 and 30 November, and 14 December 2026. Applications are assessed after each published cut-off. An application submitted after one cut-off would normally fall into the next assessment round, provided the call remains open and funding is still available. 

Once a grant agreement is signed, projects can run for up to 24 months, and all investment must be completed by 30 June 2029. After completion, claims should be submitted within three months; later submissions incur a small deduction of 0.5% per month. Applicants who claim the AI top-up face one further date to track: the productivity and ethical AI reports required to release that portion of the grant fall due roughly a year after project completion. 

Eunoia works as a data and AI implementation partner, taking on the parts of the process our team is best placed to own: identifying an opportunity for data or AI project, shaping the technical and commercial case for it, delivering the build, and measuring what it achieves. 

That work begins with an AI and data opportunity assessment, pinpointing where automation or better data could deliver a measurable operational return. From there, the opportunity is developed into an implementation-ready case, complete with a defined scope, an architecture, and a business rationale robust enough to satisfy both a grant evaluator and an internal budget holder. 

The funding side of the process, eligibility checks, state-aid rules, drafting the application, and managing claims with the Measures and Support Division, is handled by a specialist funding adviser. 

Once approved, Eunoia delivers the solution and tracks the results the application set out to achieve. In a client project within manufacturing, our team helped Toly bring reporting across Dynamics CRM, Business Central and a legacy warehouse into one governed platform, cutting the reporting cycle from weekly to daily, exactly the kind of measurable baseline a Call 2 project should be built around. 

First-hand experience with the underlying technology matters here too. Eunoia was among the first consultancies in Malta and Cyprus to hold full Microsoft Fabric certification, alongside established delivery work in Azure, Databricks and Power BI, all of which come into play once a project moves from application to actual delivery. 

Call 2 of the Digitalise Your SME scheme gives Maltese SMEs considerably more room to fund digitalisation and AI projects than Call 1 did, with a tripled budget and a combined ceiling of €235,400 for projects that qualify for the AI top-up. The trade-off is a higher minimum project size and a more detailed set of requirements, particularly around AI expenditure and the net-assets need test. Businesses that treat the application as a genuine project plan, rather than a form to fill in quickly before a deadline, are the ones most likely to see their funding approved and disbursed without delay.