SME Guarantee Fund

What it funds

The Fund does not hand out money: it guarantees a share of the loan a bank grants, taking the place of the collateral the bank would otherwise ask for. It replaces the collateral, not the creditworthiness: if the bank says no on the numbers, there is nothing to ask for here. It is not tied to a type of asset: the consolidated text of article 15-bis of decree law 145/2023 speaks of any financial operation serving the business. Coverage rises for investment programs and for small-amount operations, falls for liquidity, and further for companies larger than an SME, admitted up to 499 employees. The ceiling in the card above is on the financing that can be guaranteed per company, and no grant exists here; micro-enterprises pay nothing for the guarantee, and the additional premium introduced in 2025 is owed by the lenders, not by the company.

Requirements and what is left out

• Anyone the bank has already turned down on the numbers: there is nothing to ask for here.
• Anyone looking for a digital cost line: the Fund publishes no cost category called software, cloud or digital. The official list names plant, machinery and equipment among tangibles, and licenses, know-how and patent rights among intangibles. A software license falls under intangibles; "the Fund covers software" is something no official source writes.
• Anyone in Tuscany approaching the bank: there the Fund only steps in as a counter-guarantee, so the first counterparty is a mutual guarantee consortium.
• Financial and insurance activity, and export-linked operations.
• On combining aid the constraint is the European one: the Disposizioni Operative (Part A, paragraph 4) allow the guarantee alongside other public guarantees on the same transaction, and alongside other aid, de minimis included, within the thresholds EU rules set.

How to apply

1. Do not write to the Fund. The application is not filed there.
2. Ask a bank, a financial intermediary or a mutual guarantee consortium for the loan. In Tuscany, start from the consortium.
3. Whoever lends is the one who requests the guarantee from the Fund, not you. The management board deliberates twice a week, so there is no window to chase.

The regime in force is transitional: article 15-bis, amended by the 2025 budget law and extended by decree law 200/2025 as converted in 2026, runs to the end of 2026, and without an extension the ordinary ceilings, which are lower, would apply again. The operating rules published by MIMIT still carry superseded percentages and ceilings, so the ones here were read on the consolidated text in Normattiva: a primary source ages too.

What this budget builds

There is no assigned budget here, there is credit that becomes reachable, so a multi-year program can be financed instead of being broken into the purchases that fit inside the quarter's cash: replacing the management system with licenses and migration in one plan, and the link between the management system, the warehouse and production. I deliver in self-standing lots because the debt stays even if the project stops halfway, and the order of the lots matters more than their sum.

This entry is informational and is not advice: I do not handle grant applications, and before committing to a purchase it is worth reading the official source above or talking to whoever files the application.