Company Requirements
To be able to apply for this financing line, your company must meet the following requirements
- Be a validly constituted company with its own legal personality, and carry out the innovation project in Spain. Since the July 2026 version of the fact sheet, having its tax domicile in Spain is no longer required.
- Eligible legal forms: companies incorporated under the Capital Companies Act (S.L., S.A., partnership limited by shares), and entities whose main activity is economic, such as agricultural processing companies, cooperatives, employee-owned companies, public business entities and state-owned commercial companies.
- The following cannot be beneficiaries: individuals, self-employed workers, communities of property, civil or general partnerships, economic interest groupings, temporary business consortia (UTE), securities investment and asset-holding companies, and research organisations or public or private R&D&I centres, whatever form they take.
- Associations and foundations may be beneficiaries provided they carry out an economic activity on a regular basis and have been registered for business tax (IAE) for at least two years.
- Entities constituted or established in a country or territory on the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes cannot be beneficiaries (new in 2026).
- Not be an undertaking in difficulty within the meaning of article 2.18 of Regulation (EU) 651/2014. Large companies whose individual credit rating is below B- are rejected outright.
- Be up to date with tax and social security obligations, and with the repayment of any aid previously granted by the CDTI, both at company level and at the level of the group it belongs to under article 42 of the Commercial Code.
- Comply with the payment terms set out in Law 3/2004 on late payment, evidenced by a responsible declaration.
- Sectors excluded from the line itself (de minimis Regulation (EU) 2023/2831): primary production of agricultural, fishery and aquaculture products; processing and marketing of those products where the aid depends on the price or quantity purchased or marketed, or is passed on to primary producers; export-related activities; and aid conditional on using national goods and services over imported ones.
- Sectors excluded only from ERDF co-financing, not from the line: nuclear power plants, tobacco, airport infrastructure, technology for exclusively military use, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from Annex I activities, landfills and waste treatment, and fossil fuels. A project in these fields can still be funded with CDTI funds, forgoing the ERDF route. Dual-use technology is expressly eligible.
- ERDF 2021-2027 co-financing is reserved for SMEs, except in the Canary Islands, where large companies located there may also be co-financed. Small mid-caps (up to 499 employees that are not SMEs) may also be co-financed for research and innovation activities.
