Funding under the scheme covers a share of eligible project costs rather than the whole amount. In Malta, the grant covers 50% of eligible costs. In Gozo, where the aid intensity is higher, it covers 60%. An additional 10 percentage points may apply to specific expenditure items involving qualifying Key Digital Technologies, subject to the applicable conditions and available MDIA funding. 

Eligible expenditure covers capital investment in digitalisation rather than day-to-day running costs. That includes commercial off-the-shelf and bespoke software, qualifying hardware such as computers, servers, tablets and IoT devices, cloud services up to a two-year subscription, cybersecurity systems, analytics and Big Data tools, and the 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. 

Two further checks apply on top of the headline rate. 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 more than 2% of the applicant’s net assets. Both calls have used the same aid intensities and de minimis rules. What has changed between them is the minimum grant size and, under Call 2, a dedicated AI allowance layered on top. 

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 under this scheme. It ran with a €5 million budget, a minimum grant of €10,000, and a maximum base grant of €128,400. Start-ups benefited from preferential aid intensities of 60% and 70%, higher than the standard rate, reflecting the additional risk of funding a newer business. 

There was no dedicated AI allowance under Call 1. Projects that included AI, alongside other Key Digital Technologies such as Cyber Security or Big Data, could claim the standard 10% bonus, but AI-specific costs were not treated any differently from the rest of the project. 

By the time Call 1 closed, its €5 million budget had funded a first wave of relatively modest digitalisation projects, reflecting the lower minimum grant and the absence of a dedicated AI allowance. That closure was always intended to be followed by a second, larger round rather than a one-off pilot, which is what Call 2 represents. 

Call 2 opened on 1 July 2026 with a considerably larger €15 million budget, three times the size of Call 1. It represents a step up in scale and ambition, aimed not just at digitalisation for its own sake but specifically at bringing AI adoption within reach of smaller businesses that would otherwise struggle to justify the investment. 

The minimum grant has risen to €25,000, and a new Artificial Intelligence top-up worth up to €107,000 sits alongside the base grant, bringing the maximum combined support to €235,400. Start-ups no longer receive the preferential aid intensities available under Call 1, though a separate start-up category remains. 

Because Call 2 changes several of the numbers that matter most to an applicant, particularly the minimum grant size and the new AI allowance, the eligibility detail, deadlines and application steps for this round are covered in a separate, dedicated Call 2 guide rather than repeated here. 

As of 10 July 2026, the next cut-off is 31 July 2026. Further published cut-offs are 17 August, 18 September, 30 September, 16 October, 30 October, 13 November, 30 November and 14 December 2026. Applications remain subject to the availability of funds. 

Applying for the scheme starts by defining the project you want to fund. This is a strategic step where companies should take into consideration business needs and goals, and this is where the project’s ROI is secured. A weakly defined project can lead to disappointing outcomes.. At Eunoia, we strongly recommend conducting an AI and data opportunity assessment, which looks at where automation or better data could produce a measurable operational return. Learn more about that in the next section: How Eunoia Supports Applicants.

Next, check eligibility properly before committing time to an application. Confirm the business meets the SME definition, that the project clears the net-assets need test, and that total state aid received in the past three years leaves enough headroom under the €300,000 de minimis cap. 

From there, build the application itself: a project plan, cost breakdown, and the supporting company and financial documents the Measures and Support Division requires. Applications are submitted online through the Structural Funds Database at sfd.gov.mt, using eID or government credentials, and are assessed against the cut-off dates for whichever call is currently open. 

Finally, plan for delivery, not just approval. A grant agreement sets a fixed implementation window, and claims are reimbursed against verified spend rather than paid upfront in most cases. Businesses that scope the project properly before applying, rather than treating the form as the hard part, tend to have a smoother run once the grant is approved. 

Eunoia’s role in a Digitalise Your SME project is deliberately narrow. We work as a data and AI implementation partner rather than a funding consultancy, and we focus on the parts of the process our team can stand behind directly: finding a genuine operational problem, building the technical and commercial case for solving it, delivering the solution, and measuring the result. 

That starts with an AI and data opportunity assessment, which looks at where automation or better data could produce a measurable operational return, whether that is hours saved through automations, fewer errors, or shorter reporting delays. From there, the opportunity becomes an implementation-ready technical and commercial case: a defined scope, an architecture, and a business case that holds up under a grant evaluator’s scrutiny as well as an internal budget holder’s. 

The funding-specific steps, eligibility and state-aid checks, drafting and submitting the application, and managing claims and reimbursement with the Measures and Support Division, sit with a specialist funding adviser. Eunoia protects the quality of the technical work behind it. 

Once a project is approved, Eunoia implements the solution and helps measure the outcomes the application promised. From a client project in the manufacturing sector, Eunoia’s team helped Toly centralise reporting across Dynamics CRM, Business Central and a legacy warehouse into a single governed platform, moving the business from weekly to daily reporting, the kind of measurable baseline a funded digitalisation project can be built around. However, the number of use cases is not limited to data platform. It is defined based on the results of the AI and Data opportunity assessment. For more case studies, follow the link: Eunoia’s case studies. 

Relevant certifications back up our expertise directly. Eunoia was among the first consultancies in Malta and Cyprus to become fully certified in Microsoft Fabric and achieve The Analytics on Microsoft Azure Specialisation, , Microsoft’s highest-level credential for data and analytics partners, alongside established work in Azure, Databricks and Power BI. 

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 extract the maximum value from this initiative.