If your operating seat is in Brussels, the digitalisation grant covers 25% of eligible spend by default. Seventy per cent is the ceiling, reached only by stacking top-ups, and €10,000 per calendar year caps what lands in your account. File before you sign anything.
Updated on 17 August 2026. Rates, ceilings and deadlines rechecked on that date against the Brussels regional pages and the Walloon voucher scheme. The grant has run under the order of 22 February 2024, which replaced the former Prime Web.
The official grid is published in French and Dutch only, so if you run your company in English from Brussels you have been working from second-hand summaries. Every number below is the Region's own.
Your rate is 25%, and the top-ups decide everything above that
The base rate and the three top-ups
Every accepted applicant gets 25% of eligible spend. Above that line sit three top-ups, and each depends on something you either have or do not: registration less than four years old, recognised environmental performance, recognised social performance. Company size changes the amounts, so a medium-sized company gains less from each top-up than a micro or small one.
| Component | Micro and small company | Medium company |
|---|---|---|
| Base rate | 25% | 25% |
| Starter top-up (registered less than 4 years) | +25% | +20% |
| Environmental exemplarity | +30% | +20% |
| Social exemplarity | +30% | +20% |
| Maximum rate paid | 70% | 70% |
Take a small company registered two years ago, with no environmental or social recognition. Its rate is 25% plus the 25% starter top-up, so 50%. On a mission quoted at €8,000, the grant comes to €4,000 and you fund the other €4,000 yourself.
To get anywhere near 70% you have to combine the starter top-up with at least one exemplarity recognition, and those recognitions are assessed by the Region rather than declared by you. So the honest planning assumption is 25%, or 50% if you are a starter. Write the base rate into your budget and treat anything above it as good news once the decision letter arrives.
The ceilings, and where they bite
Four limits apply at the same time: €10,000 per beneficiary per calendar year, a minimum of €500 per application, a maximum of two subsidised missions per calendar year, and six months as the maximum duration of a single mission.
The €10,000 applies to the grant and not to the project. At 50%, €20,000 of eligible spend saturates it for the year, so you fund every euro beyond that yourself. The ceiling resets on 1 January, so you gain by splitting a large programme across two calendar years.
Work out your own figure
Enter your company size, your starter status and the amount on your quote. The simulator applies the grid above, including the annual ceiling, and returns your rate and your amount.
This estimate is indicative and based on the rates published by Brussels Economy and Employment for the Digitalisation Grant: 25% base rate, stackable bonuses, a ceiling of 70% of eligible costs and €10,000 per calendar year. The actual amount depends on validation of your application.
Brussels or Wallonia: the operating seat decides
A small Brussels company with no top-up receives 25%. The same company with its operating seat in Wallonia receives 50% of costs excluding VAT through the digital maturity voucher, with nothing extra to qualify for. On identical spend, that is double the rate for a decision you took when you chose where to base the business.
The ceilings run the other way, though. Brussels gives you €10,000 every calendar year, which renews indefinitely, whereas Wallonia gives you €50,000 excluding VAT per beneficiary over three years. The Walloon ceiling is higher in absolute terms; the Brussels one comes back every January.
| Criterion | Brussels: Prime Digitalisation | Wallonia: digital maturity voucher |
|---|---|---|
| Rate | 25% base, up to 70% with top-ups | 50% of costs excluding VAT |
| Ceiling | €10,000 per beneficiary per calendar year | €50,000 excluding VAT per beneficiary over three years |
| Who qualifies | Operating seat in one of the 19 Brussels communes, registered with the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises | Self-employed people and SMEs with their seat in Wallonia |
| Who is excluded | Companies more than 75% publicly funded | Non-profit organisations, and companies in the digital sectors (NACE 61.10 to 62.09) |
| Time to deliver | Supporting documents within 12 months of the grant notification | Work carried out within 12 months of the grant notification |
| Platform | MonBEE | cheques-entreprises.be |
Wallonia also runs a cybersecurity voucher at 75%, up to €50,000 excluding VAT over three years. If part of your project is genuinely about securing your systems, a Walloon company should look at that route before the digitalisation route, because the rate is half again as high.
A Walloon reform is in progress and you should not plan around it yet. A draft decree was adopted at first reading and announced on 11 December 2025: a single digital platform, three categories of aid covering training, strategic advice and implementation support, sector advice centres, a governance committee, and tighter controls with graduated penalties. No rate, no ceiling and no date of entry into force have been published. Until figures appear, the 50% voucher described above is what a Walloon applicant works with.
The operating seat decides which scheme you fall under. Your home address as a director carries no weight, and neither does the registered office if the work happens elsewhere. Moving an operating seat to chase a better rate is rarely worth it, since the seat has to be real and the grant is worth a few thousand euros. If your company sits on the Walloon side, read our guide to grants and subsidies for a website in Wallonia.
What gets a file refused
Ordering before filing. Any spend you commit before you file is ineligible, and no amount of correspondence afterwards will recover it. Signing the quote counts as committing the spend.
A provider who does not qualify. The Region asks that your provider has consultancy as its main activity, is specialised in the field concerned, has at least two years of consultancy behind it, can show references, and is independent of your company. An agency can do excellent work and still make your file inadmissible on the NACE code alone, so ask for that code before you discuss the quote.
Recurring costs slipped into the quote. Domain name, hosting and maintenance are not eligible. Neither is computer hardware, nor software licences bought on their own. If a quote bundles a €6,000 build with a €900 annual hosting and maintenance package, the Region assesses only the eligible part, so ask your provider to invoice the two separately.
Administrative conditions that get forgotten. Your annual accounts have to be filed, your company cannot be more than 75% publicly funded, your de minimis aid cannot exceed €300,000 over the last three years, and once you pass 50 workers you need a diversity plan. The de minimis ceiling is the one to check first, because it counts every public aid your company has received over that period, including grants from other schemes and other levels of government.
What the grant pays for, and what it does not
The grant covers three domains: digitalisation of internal processes, of means of production, of products or services; IT security; and the development or technical improvement of your website. A redesign that measurably improves the site qualifies, and so does the automation of an internal workflow that currently runs on spreadsheets and email.
It also covers up to five training courses a year linked to your digitalisation project, at the same rates. That matters when you have to train two or three people before anyone uses the tool you are buying properly, since the training goes into the same file rather than a separate application.
On the other side sit recurring costs, hardware, standalone licences, and anything committed before you filed. If you are trying to work out what part of a quote is realistically eligible, our breakdown of what a showcase site costs in Belgium separates the one-off build cost from the running costs.
Four months from filing to decision
- File your application at the latest the day before the mission starts.
- If your file is incomplete, the Region notifies you within 15 days and you get one month to complete it.
- The decision comes within four months at most, counted from receipt of the complete file.
- The mission may start the day after your application at the earliest, and no later than three months after the date of the decision.
- Supporting documents are due within 12 months of the grant notification.
If you want a site live for September, you have to start preparing in spring, because four months of assessment plus a build of any substance does not fit into the summer. Filing in June for a September launch means starting the work while the answer is still open.
The Region publishes an assessment deadline and stops there. There is no guaranteed payment deadline anywhere in the scheme. Plan your cash flow on the assumption that you pay your provider in full and recover the grant later.
Spreading the project over several years
Because the ceiling is €10,000 per calendar year and you are allowed two subsidised missions a year, you can cut a large project into phases that each fit inside a year's allowance. Run a €30,000 programme through in one year at 50% and the grant works out at €15,000, of which the Region pays €10,000: you lose the remaining €5,000.
Split the same programme across three calendar years at €10,000 of eligible spend a year and each phase draws €5,000, so €15,000 in total against the €10,000 of the one-shot version. The cost is time and a little administrative repetition: three files instead of one, each with its own deadlines.
Your provider has to be eligible too
This condition catches more files than the technical ones, because you choose your web agency for its portfolio and only then find out it does not meet the criteria. Check it before you brief anyone.
| Condition on the provider | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Consultancy as main activity | The provider's main NACE code falls under consultancy, which rules out some purely technical outfits |
| Specialisation in the field | Demonstrable expertise in the specific area of your mission |
| At least two years of consultancy | A newly created company cannot carry your file |
| Demonstrable references | Comparable projects the Region can verify |
| Independence from your company | No shareholding or management link between the two parties |
We meet these conditions and we prepare the eligibility part of the file with clients who ask for it, alongside the website creation work itself. Whoever you pick, get their NACE code and their references in writing before you sign the quote.
What to take away
- Your default rate is 25%. The 70% headline assumes top-ups you may not have, so get them confirmed before you build a budget on them.
- File on MonBEE before you sign the quote. Committing the spend first is the one error that cannot be corrected.
- The €10,000 ceiling applies to the grant itself, so at 50% you reach it with €20,000 of eligible spend and the rest is on you.
- An operating seat in Wallonia means 50% straight away instead of 25%, but €50,000 excluding VAT over three years instead of €10,000 renewed every year.
- Count four months between filing and decision, and cut a heavy project into two missions rather than one.
