Luxembourg funds startups more generously than almost any founder expects, and less visibly than almost any founder would like. The programmes exist, the money is real, and the information is scattered across a dozen institutional websites. This is the consolidated map, ordered by company stage; the maintained long-form version, with every condition and official source, is the funding reference.
Before revenue: getting off the ground
Primo-création pays first-time founders of new micro-enterprises in commerce and craft €2,000 a month for six months, non-repayable. It is the simplest cheque on the map: no jury, no cohort, aimed squarely at people opening their first real business.
Fit 4 Start is the flagship: up to €150,000 equity-free plus six months of acceleration, for young startups in digital, health tech and space. Competitive, cohort-based, two calls a year. If you have a team and a prototype, this is the one to prepare properly for; our selection guide covers how.
After the first money: growing
Young Innovative Enterprise matches a recent private raise with state co-funding up to around €800,000 for innovative companies under five years old. The point is leverage: your investors' money goes further. Timing around the raise is everything, as explained in the YIE guide.
R&D and Innovation Aid co-funds research and experimental development projects, with rates that rise for smaller companies. This is the workhorse for anything with genuine technical uncertainty, and it pairs naturally with the IP Box once the resulting product earns money.
For operating SMEs
SME Packages reimburse 70% of expert projects between €3,000 and €25,000 across digital, AI, cybersecurity, sustainability and service themes. The most accessible aid in the country for an established small business, covered in detail here.
Fit 4 Digital delivers a fully covered digital-maturity assessment with a costed action plan, which often becomes the shopping list for the packages above.
Investment Tax Credit returns a share of qualifying investment through the tax return rather than as a grant; different plumbing, same bottom line.
Financing rather than grants
SNCI provides public loans alongside your bank rather than replacing it, typically co-financing meaningful chunks of projects, with startup-friendly terms on some instruments. PCP loans serve small business creation in commerce and craft.
The EU layer
EIC Accelerator offers grants up to €2.5M plus optional equity for deep-tech breakthroughs, the most competitive instrument in Europe. Horizon Europe collaborative projects fund research consortia. And the EUIPO SME Fund reimburses most of your trademark and design fees, the smallest and easiest yes on this page.
How founders actually use the map
Not as a list to apply to everything. The pattern that works is a chain matched to stage: perhaps Primo-création or Fit 4 Start at the start, R&D aid during development, YIE around the raise, IP Box once revenue flows, packages for the operational upgrades along the way. Each link has an apply-before-you-start rule and a paperwork bar, and the chain is exactly what our eligibility check maps for you in fifteen minutes, free.