Co-Financing and State Aid: Combining Dutch Subsidies (2026)
Manna Team
If you've read our guide on combining and stacking subsidies, you know that stacking WBSO, MIT and SLIM is usually allowed as long as you don't fund the same cost twice. But knowing you can combine schemes raises two harder questions that trip up a lot of applicants: how much of the bill you still have to pay yourself once several schemes are involved, and how much subsidy your company is even allowed to receive in total. The first question is about co-financing; the second is about the state aid ceiling that most Dutch subsidies operate under. This article goes into both, and shows how they interact once you start combining schemes.
Co-financing: what "your own contribution" really means
Almost no subsidy in the Netherlands pays 100% of your costs. Each scheme fixes a subsidy rate — the percentage of eligible costs it reimburses — and you fund the rest yourself. This own contribution is called co-financing.
Two concrete examples show how much this can vary:
- SLIM reimburses 60% of eligible costs, up to a maximum subsidy of €24,999. You cover the remaining 40% yourself.
- The MIT feasibility project in North Holland reimburses 35% of eligible costs, up to a maximum of €20,000. With €60,000 of eligible costs, 35% would be €21,000 — but the subsidy is capped at €20,000, so your own contribution ends up above the nominal 65%.
That last point matters: a scheme's subsidy rate and its maximum amount are two separate limits, and whichever bites first determines your real co-financing burden. Co-financing doesn't have to come purely from your own cash — it can be arranged through a bank, an investor, or, in a consortium, contributions from partner organisations. Either way, underestimating it is one of the most common reasons a well-prepared application still runs into funding trouble mid-project.
De-minimis, the AGVV/GBER, and why you declare prior aid
Subsidies are, legally, a form of state aid: a selective advantage granted with government money that could distort competition. EU rules normally require the government to notify the European Commission before granting aid like this — but most Dutch schemes are built to fall under an exemption instead, so no individual notification is needed.
Two exemptions cover almost everything you'll encounter:
- De-minimis aid is considered too limited to distort competition. It comes with a ceiling per company over a rolling period, and if you receive aid from several de-minimis schemes in the same period — SLIM plus other project subsidies, for instance — you add the amounts together and cannot cross that ceiling. That's why every de-minimis application asks you to declare aid received earlier.
- The AGVV/GBER (General Block Exemption Regulation) pre-approves broader categories such as R&D, training and SME support. Instead of one cumulative company-wide ceiling, it attaches conditions to the specific project — mainly a maximum aid intensity as a percentage of eligible costs.
Don't confuse either of these with a scheme's subsidieplafond — that's simply the total budget available for an opening, handled first-come-first-served, and it's a separate risk from the state aid limits above.
One more distinction worth remembering: the WBSO and the innovation box are tax schemes, not subsidies, so they sit outside de-minimis bookkeeping entirely. That's convenient, and it's the key to the example below.
A practical example: WBSO plus a co-financed subsidy
Say your company is running an R&D project. You claim the WBSO for the R&D wage costs — a tax scheme that reduces your payroll tax, doesn't require co-financing in the usual sense, and doesn't consume any de-minimis room. In parallel, you apply for the MIT feasibility project to test a related idea before you scale it: €60,000 of eligible costs, a 35% subsidy rate, capped at €20,000, which means you fund the remaining €40,000 yourself.
Because the WBSO and the MIT feasibility project cover different costs, there's no double funding. But only the MIT subsidy counts toward your de-minimis ceiling — the WBSO doesn't. If you later add SLIM to train staff on the new process, that aid stacks with the MIT aid in your de-minimis total, while the WBSO stays a separate, parallel track. Two ledgers, not one: co-financing tells you what you must still pay yourself; the de-minimis/AGVV ceiling tells you how much aid you're still allowed to receive.
Let Manna help
Manna checks which schemes fit your projects and keeps track of the co-financing and state aid side too, so you know both what you'll need to fund yourself and how much room you have left before you apply.
- Take the free WBSO check
- Combining subsidies: can you stack WBSO, MIT and more?
- MIT scheme 2026: innovation subsidy for Dutch SMEs
This article is informational and not tax or legal advice. See RVO.nl for the current conditions per scheme.
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