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Competition Policy

Aid beneficiaries

Overview

State aid 

The Eu State aid rules regulate public subsidies granted to companies and help ensure fair competition and a level playing field across the single market. 

The State aid Modernisation programme (SAM), adopted in 2014, introduced transparency requirements for aid awards ensuring that information on aid granted to companies is publicly available and open to scrutiny. These requirements have been mandatory since 2016.

Member States must publish details on aid granted to individual beneficiaries when it exceeds the relevant thresholds.

De minimis aid

The de minimis Regulations exempt small aid amounts from the scope of EU State aid control because they are deemed to have no impact on competition and trade in the internal market. 

  • From 1 January 2026, information on General and SGEI de minimis aid must be recorded in a central register at national or Union level.​
  • The same applies for AGRI de minimis aid, but from 1 January 2027.
  • A central register for FISH de minimis aid is not yet mandatory.

Where to find the data

State aid 

Member States must ensure that transparency information is published either:

  • on the Commission's Transparency Award Module (TAM), or
  • on a comprehensive State aid website, at national or regional level.

De minimis 

Member State must publish de minimis aid information either

  • on the Commission’s Union-level central register eAidRegister (eAIR), or
  • on a national central register that meets the requirements laid down in the de minimis Regulations.

Why transparency matters

Transparency benefits everyone. It allows citizens and businesses to see which companies have received State aid, for what purpose and in what amount. This helps promoting accountability, policy effectiveness and the good use of taxpayers’ money. 

These principles also promote compliance and legal certainty. Companies can verify whether aid granted to competitors complies with EU rules, and the public can have a clear view of how resources are used. Well-informed citizens contribute to more constructive dialogue between governments and society, ultimately leading to better policy outcomes.

A public register for de minimis aid awards enables proper tracking of whether a beneficiary has exceeded the de minimis ceiling set in the respective Regulation and reduces the administrative burden by eliminating the need for beneficiaries to self-declare previous aid received. 

Legal framework

The transparency requirements are spelled out in the following legal acts:

State aid

Block-exempted regulations

State aid guidelines and frameworks

Expired guidelines and regulations

Temporary Frameworks (expired)

Moreover, transparency obligations can also be defined for aid given directly under the TFEU if the Member State commits to transparency in the form notifying the State aid measure and a specific transparency commitment is included on the text of the decision. 

Compliance with transparency requirements is not legally binding when neither the legal basis nor the Commission decision explicitly includes a transparency requirement. In such cases, transparency can be applied on a voluntary basis.

De minimis

Information to publish

State aid

The transparency requirements are set out in Article 9(1)(c) and Annex III of the GBER and in the dedicated transparency sections of the relevant legal bases.

Information published typically includes:

  • Name of the beneficiary
  • Beneficiary's identifier
  • Type of enterprise (SME/large) at the time of granting
  • Region in which the beneficiary is located, at NUTS level II
  • Sector of activity at NACE group level
  • Aid element, expressed as full amount in national currency
  • Aid instrument
  • Date of granting
  • Objective of the aid
  • Granting authority
  • If applicable, name of the entrusted entity, and the names of the selected financial intermediaries
  • Reference of the aid measure. 

De minimis

Information published includes:

  • Identification of the beneficiary
  • Aid amount,
  • Granting date,
  • Granting authority,
  • Aid instrument and the
  • Sector involved on the basis of the statistical classification of economic activities in the Union (‘NACE classification’)

Thresholds and publication deadline 

State aid

Publication thresholds and deadlines depend on the relevant legal basis.

  • In most cases, Member States must publish all individual awards exceeding EUR 100 000 (some legal bases set different thresholds).
  • In general, transparency information must be published within six months of granting the aid.
  • For tax advantages, Member States have up to one year from the submission of the relevant tax declaration to publish the information.
  • Some legal bases set different deadlines.

To confirm the threshold and deadline for a specific case, the relevant legal basis should always be consulted.

De minimis

Member States have to publish information on all de minimis aid awards granted within 20 working days following the grant of the aid.