SLIM subsidy 2026: application windows closed, the outcome and what now (a guide for SMEs)

Can I still apply for a SLIM subsidy now?

No. For individual SMEs, 2026 had two application windows. The first ran from 09:00 on 7 April to 17:00 on 4 May. The second ran from 09:00 on 19 August to 17:00 on 7 September. Partnerships could apply from 22 June to 20 July 2026. All three windows have closed.

The windows for 2027 have not yet been published. On 7 October 2026 they were not in the Staatscourant or on the Uitvoering van Beleid website. Some websites already list dates for 2027. We found no official source for them. Treat such dates as an expectation, not a fact.

Official sources do not always agree, either. The explanatory notes to the amending regulation of 30 March 2026 in the Staatscourant gave 10 August as the start of the second SME window. On 31 March, the Rijksoverheid (the Dutch central government) announced 19 August, and that became the date. The window for partnerships was first planned from 8 June to 6 July. A notice of 3 June moved it to 22 June to 20 July.

How did the 2026 SLIM application windows turn out?

According to Uitvoering van Beleid, the budget was heavily oversubscribed in all three windows. In each window, a lottery after closing therefore set the order in which the applications are handled. The published outcomes:

• Window 1 for SMEs (April and May): subsidy ceiling €11 million. The first 474 applications in the lottery order will in any case be assessed.
• Partnerships (June and July): subsidy ceiling €6 million. The first 17 applications in the lottery order will in any case be assessed.
• Window 2 for SMEs (August and September): subsidy ceiling €6 million. The first 257 applications in the lottery order will in any case be assessed.

What does the lottery mean for a submitted application?

If budget remains after assessment, Uitvoering van Beleid takes up the next application on the lottery list each time. How many applications came in overall, and how many will ultimately be granted, is not stated in Uitvoering van Beleid's news releases.

A place among the first 474 or 257 is not an award either. Those applications are still assessed for completeness and content. Three rules in the SLIM-regeling further determine your place. The time of submission within the window does not count, because the lottery only takes place after closing. If you submitted several applications for similar initiatives, only the first one goes into the lottery. And an incomplete application moves to the back of the list once it has been completed.

I have applied. When will I hear something?

Article 2.11 of the SLIM-regeling provides that a decision on an SME application is taken within 13 weeks of the end of the window. Uitvoering van Beleid gives the same period. For the window that closed on 7 September 2026, that means a decision by early December 2026 at the latest.

In an earlier version of this article, we gave a processing time of about eighteen weeks and decisions around mid-January 2027. That was our own estimate. The period in the regulation is 13 weeks, and that is what we now use.

Do not start the project in the meantime. Eligible costs must be incurred within the initiative period, which only starts on the day after the date of the decision to grant the subsidy. Anything you carry out earlier cannot be claimed later.

When does the SLIM subsidy open in 2027?

That is not yet known. Since an amendment of 30 March 2026 to the regulation, the minister sets the application windows and subsidy ceilings separately. They are announced in the Staatscourant and on the Uitvoering van Beleid website. The scheme itself continues: SLIM mkb (the SLIM SME scheme) has been set up for the period 2025 to 2029 inclusive.

What you can prepare now, from a draft training plan to your overview of de minimis aid, is set out in our article SLIM subsidy 2027: what is fixed, what is not and how to prepare now. As soon as Uitvoering van Beleid publishes the 2027 windows, they will appear on our SLIM page (in Dutch).

What does SLIM mkb cover, and what does it not?

SLIM mkb subsidises setting up learning and development, not the training itself. The scheme has three activities: a company review that results in a training or development plan, career or development advice for working people, and developing or introducing a method that encourages learning and development in the company. For an individual SME, these amounts apply:

• Company review and learning method: 60 percent of the eligible costs. Together, these costs must amount to at least €5,000.
• Career or development advice: a fixed amount of €700 per completed advice track.
• Maximum: the regulation refers to a subsidy of up to €25,000; Uitvoering van Beleid applies €24,999 per application. For agricultural businesses, the maximum is €20,000.
• Duration: the project is completed within twelve months.

Which costs fall outside SLIM mkb?

For the company review and the learning method, the regulation expressly lists what is not eligible. This includes training costs, wage costs for working time lost to training, overhead costs, VAT, external costs without an invoice, costs incurred outside the initiative period and costs arising from legally required tasks. A company review that is not clearly tailored to your own company's training needs is also excluded. An activity aimed only at directors or owners does not qualify either.

So always budget for your own contribution. With a 60 percent subsidy, you bear 40 percent of the eligible costs yourself, and you pay for the training itself in full.

How does it differ from the SLIM training subsidy?

Besides SLIM mkb there is the SLIM-scholingssubsidie (SLIM training subsidy). It does cover training costs, but only for courses in the Sectorale Ontwikkelpaden (sector development pathways): engineering, construction and energy, health and social care, education, childcare, ICT and the green sector. Whether a particular course is included has to be checked course by course.

For individual employers, the 2026 budget has run out. The application window opened on 26 May 2026 and formally runs until 31 December inclusive, but the subsidy ceiling was reached on 10 September 2026. A later application only receives budget if money becomes available during assessment. According to Uitvoering van Beleid, applications for which no budget was left can be resubmitted in the 2027 application window.

For greenhouse horticulture there is also a sector-specific route. According to the trade association Plantum, companies in greenhouse horticulture and plant breeding have been able, since 1 September 2026, to have up to 90 percent of training costs reimbursed for selected courses in the Sectoraal Ontwikkelpad Glastuinbouw en Veredeling (the sector development pathway for greenhouse horticulture and plant breeding). Glastuinbouw Nederland (the Dutch greenhouse horticulture sector organisation) applied for this subsidy for the sector together with the social partners. According to Plantum, the participating courses are listed on Kasgroeit.nl.

Can I use SLIM for AI training of my staff?

Partly. The training days themselves are training costs and therefore not eligible under SLIM mkb. The work around them can be: a company review that results in a training plan per role, and a method that brings the learning back into daily work afterwards. Think of a regular learning slot on AI in the team meeting, linked to the procedures of the quality system you already maintain under HACCP or FSSC 22000. Whether a specific plan is eligible is for Uitvoering van Beleid to assess.

One point deserves attention. Article 4 of the AI Act on AI literacy has applied since 2 February 2025. Since the amendment by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, which entered into force on 27 July 2026, it has asked organisations that use AI to take measures to support the development of their staff's AI literacy. They do not have to guarantee a specific level. The SLIM-regeling excludes costs arising from legally required tasks. We do not know whether Uitvoering van Beleid regards a training plan for AI literacy as such a task. We found no publication on it. So describe a plan in terms of the development needs of your company and your employees, and put any doubts to Uitvoering van Beleid in advance.

How the dividing line between eligible and ineligible costs works out in a budget is explained in our article on the SLIM subsidy and AI training.

Low in the draw or rejected: what other routes are there?

Because of the lottery, a SLIM application is never a certainty. So design a learning track that has value even without the subsidy, with the subsidy as an accelerator rather than a precondition. There are also other routes:

• Sector training and development funds (O&O funds). These have their own rules and sometimes do cover training costs. For transport and logistics, for example, that is the SOOB subsidy, administered by STL (the sector institute for transport and logistics). For courses leading to a sector qualification and for theme-related courses, it is available from 1 January to 31 December 2026, provided you apply before the course starts.
• A training budget in your own collective labour agreement (cao), if your agreement provides for one.
• A new SLIM application in 2027. Note: if you have already been granted a subsidy for a company review or learning method for which the subsidy has not yet been finally settled, a new application for such an activity will be refused.

What you can do now

If you want to apply in 2027, you gain most time through preparation that does not depend on the dates. Registration in the Uitvoering van Beleid subsidy portal is possible from two weeks before a window opens, and within five working days you will see whether it has gone through. So do not wait until the opening day.

The most important work lies in the content. Determine which work process and which roles the learning track affects, and what must be measurably different at the end. The regulation expressly names insufficiently measurable results, feasibility that is not sufficiently plausible and a missing evaluation design as grounds for refusal. A plan that answers those three questions is useful even without a subsidy.