Enterprise vouchers (Slovenian Enterprise Fund)

What it funds

The "Spodbude malih vrednosti preko vavčerjev" programme runs from 2023 to 2028 and covers single services, not investments: the beneficiary gets a voucher to spend on a purchased service, not a share of a plant. The 60% and the 9,999.99 EUR ceiling are not a pair of tongs: the first is the share of the eligible cost, the second the maximum grant per voucher, and the grant starts at 300 EUR. Some vouchers pay a lump sum instead of the share. The eligible costs are set by each individual call, never by the umbrella, so the only question to take to a call is which voucher is open and what falls inside it. Nine types are foreseen and one concerns anyone buying security: the cybersecurity voucher (vavčer za kibernetsko varnost). The other eight cover delegations abroad, certificates, intellectual property, environmental assessment, corporate transformation, ownership transfer, prototypes for startups and the preparation of proposals for European research programmes. Those are the calls published so far: the cybersecurity voucher is foreseen and not yet published, and if you are after the management system, the cloud or a review of your data, this page has nothing for you. The framework is the Slovenian Enterprise Fund's voucher page, which sets the characteristics common to every type.

Requirements and what is left out

• Be a micro, small or medium enterprise based in the Republic of Slovenia, formed as a limited liability company, sole proprietorship or cooperative.
• Have at least one employee on the day of the application; for a sole proprietorship the owner counts. Some calls set a different requirement, and that call's one is the one that counts.
• Have settled financial obligations on the application date.
• Not be in difficulty: compulsory settlement, bankruptcy and liquidation are all excluded.
• Not operate in an excluded sector.
• Have the spend fall inside the call's eligible costs: the programme umbrella does not open the grant, the individual call does.
• The grant is paid after the work: the payment claim with the evidence is filed once the activity is done, through the same ePortal.
• Stay within the annual ceiling: 30,000 EUR of vouchers per company per year, according to the state portal's SME page. On a 9,999.99 EUR voucher you reach it in three.

How to apply

1. Find the call for the voucher you need: they appear on the Fund's site and in the official gazette, and each one runs until its funds run out.
2. Prepare the application in the ePortal with the ready-made form, asking the free SPOT advisers if you need help: there are twelve of them.
3. Submit electronically from the ePortal, with a two-factor digital signature on the documents.
4. The Fund reviews it. An incomplete application is sent back for completion; a complete one that meets the call's conditions is approved as a co-financing agreement.
5. Sign the agreement digitally, with a qualified certificate for business entities.
6. Carry out the work as the agreement says and file the payment claim with the evidence from the ePortal.

What this budget builds

A voucher of this kind does one specific thing: it pays a specialist for defined work without opening an investment specification. I use it as a size ceiling rather than as a contribution to a plan: reviewing the perimeter and the backups, moving one process onto a platform, connecting the management system to something outside it. Those are pieces that get invoiced and closed, so they fit inside a number like this. Two questions decide whether it is worth it, and I ask both before anything else: which call is open and what its eligible costs are, and whether the work can be invoiced as a single service. The rest is short, papered bureaucracy, because the application takes minutes and the body that reviews it is public and publishes its calls.

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.