Large clean-transition investment grant
The 2025 call is closed. This grant supported industrial emissions and energy savings, and manufacturing of specified clean technologies, for investments with at least €30 million in eligible costs in Finland excluding Åland.
Business Finland’s grant has two branches: improving an industrial production process, or building production capacity for specified technologies and materials needed for a climate-neutral economy. It reimburses part of eligible investment costs; the company finances the remainder and pays costs before claiming reimbursement.
For industrial processes, the maximum grant is 50% of eligible costs for switching to renewable hydrogen or fuels made from it, 30% for electrification, and 30% for energy-efficiency investments. The industrial branch is capped at €200 million per company. For strategic manufacturing, the ordinary limit is 15% and €150 million per company; in designated assisted areas it is 20% and €200 million. These are alternative activity/location limits, not amounts to add together.
If the same investment also receives the investment tax credit, the combined grant and credit must stay within the applicable €200 million industrial cap, or the €150 million manufacturing cap (€200 million in assisted areas). For aid covering the same or overlapping eligible costs, the combined support must not exceed the highest applicable aid percentage and/or amount allowed by the relevant rules. Total aid must also remain at or below 100% of eligible costs; that absolute ceiling does not override a lower applicable limit. Check the official assisted-area map when assessing the higher manufacturing limit.
The first payment requires a binding equipment order, construction to have started and at least 20% of costs to have been paid. The final payment is at least 20% of the grant and requires full completion and an approved final report; for industrial-process investments (Measure A), the Commission decision also requires the aided asset to be insured against loss or damage. An independent auditor’s report covers the whole project. Breaching the award or funding conditions can lead to recovery of the grant, with interest from payment at the statutory base rate plus three percentage points.
Eligibility
The investment must be in Finland outside Åland, have at least €30 million in eligible costs, and make a significant contribution to Finland’s climate and economic-policy objectives. Companies of all sizes can qualify, including companies registered abroad and not yet operating in Finland. The company must meet the programme’s tax-registration, payment-compliance and continuing-business requirements.
A company or its group cannot be a credit institution or other financial institution, be subject to an outstanding recovery order for unlawful aid, or be in financial difficulty under the call’s EU rescue-and-restructuring definition. EU sanctions also cover the company, group and owners exercising actual control. Business Finland excludes applicants outside the prepayment register, with tax or enforcement debts without a valid payment plan, significant payment defaults, overdue earlier Tekes/Business Finland loans, or no basis for continuing profitable business.
Financial difficulty is assessed at award using company and group finances. Relevant tests include accumulated losses consuming more than half of subscribed share capital, or more than half of own funds for an unlimited-liability company; insolvency proceedings or meeting the conditions for creditors to request them; and, for large companies, both debt-to-equity above 7.5 and a ratio below 1 of earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to net financing costs in each of the two preceding approved financial years. The capital-loss tests do not apply to an SME operating for less than three years; the insolvency test still applies. Prepare the accounts needed for that assessment.
For industrial improvements, the supported installation must cut direct greenhouse-gas emissions by at least 40% through electrification or renewable hydrogen/fuels, or cut energy use in the supported activity by at least 20%. Compare the same type and quantity of output against the average over the five years before application, using verified emissions or energy data. Energy calculations include all inputs, including feedstocks and renewable sources; emissions calculations include actual biomass-combustion emissions. An installation is the stationary industrial production unit, including comparable units outside emissions trading—not an arbitrarily narrowed piece of equipment.
The installation must already comply with applicable EU standards; funding cannot merely pay for compliance. Where EU emissions trading applies, emissions after investment must be below the relevant benchmark for free allowances. Renewable hydrogen must meet the EU certification and production methodology; hydrogen-derived fuels must come from non-biomass renewable energy and achieve at least 70% lifecycle emissions savings against 94 g CO₂-equivalent/MJ. A hydrogen-switching installation must use 100% renewable hydrogen or its qualifying fuels, rather than continue fossil-fuel use.
Industrial aid must change the investment decision: provide profitability calculations with and without aid. Production capacity cannot increase except where technically necessary, by no more than 2%. The plant or equipment must be ready and operating within 36 months of the grant decision. Each full month late reduces the grant by 1%, up to the entire grant, unless the delay results from an unforeseeable cause outside the recipient’s control. Selection considers feasibility, emissions or energy savings, aid per lifetime benefit and wider environmental, employment, regional and innovation effects.
Strategic manufacturing covers batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, heat pumps, electrolysers and carbon capture, use and storage equipment; the specified key components designed and primarily used to make them; and the specified critical raw materials needed for that production or recovery. Components are those listed in decree 2/2025, and critical materials follow the referenced EU list. Business Finland also assesses the concrete risk that the investment would otherwise take place outside the European Economic Area.
Manufacturing investments must remain in the region for at least five years after completion under the scheme decision and funding contract. Obsolete or broken plant/equipment may be replaced if economic activity continues for the minimum period, without additional aid for that replacement. Aid cannot facilitate relocation within the European Economic Area: confirm no such relocation to the investment site in the two years before application and commit to none for two years after completion.
Eligible costs are reasonable, paid, project-period investment costs excluding VAT. Manufacturing can include land, buildings, plant, machinery and intangible assets. Intangibles must be depreciable, bought at market terms from unrelated parties, included in the company’s assets, used primarily at the supported facility, remain linked to the region and stay with the project for at least five years. The recipient’s own wages and those of its group/associated companies, overheads, financing costs, travel, representation, specified public fees, fines, provisions and VAT are excluded.
How to apply
- Status
- closed
- Opens
- Closes
- Round restrictions
- The call is closed. Projects must be in Finland excluding Åland.
The call ran from 13 January to 14 March 2025 and is closed. The current programme page says the grant is no longer available for applications. For questions about an existing funded project, use the programme contacts Sini Uuttu or Hanna Rinta-Erkkilä on the official page.
Applications were submitted through Business Finland’s electronic service, with an Excel profitability calculation reflecting the company’s investment decision, justified assumptions and a total financing plan. Submission had to precede construction, a binding equipment order or another irreversible commitment, whichever came first. Buying land, obtaining permits and preliminary feasibility work did not count as starting the investment.