progres.nrw – Low-emission mobility

Your project must be in North Rhine-Westphalia. Eligible groups vary by activity: specified residential owners/tenants and owners’ associations, freelancers, sole traders, partnerships, private/public legal persons, municipalities, municipal associations, joint municipal bodies and non-economic municipal enterprises. A company need not have its headquarters in NRW; vehicle funding requires a site there.

For residential charging, private applicants must be qualifying landlords/tenants, members of an owners’ association, or owners in the associated parking/garage complex. Owners of their own single-family or terraced homes are excluded, as are lifelong residence rights, usufruct arrangements and commercially let property. A trade registration solely for running a renewable-energy installation does not establish business eligibility.

For commercial fast charging, large companies are excluded. A small company has fewer than 50 employees and annual turnover or balance-sheet total no more than €10 million; a medium-sized company has fewer than 250 employees and turnover no more than €50 million or balance-sheet total no more than €43 million. Each DC point must maintain at least 50 kW even when all points are occupied. Install at a business site whose main business is not selling charging electricity. If publicly accessible, the points may only charge class N2/N3 heavy goods vehicles. Municipal charging must be exclusively non-economic: the funded points cannot be used to offer charging services on a market.

Charging equipment must be new, stationary and controllable through a bidirectional data interface and the necessary communications protocol. Eligible costs include charging equipment, load/energy management, communications, groundworks, installation, grid connection and electrical infrastructure to the parking space. A professional installer must follow the charging-station rules. Use renewable electricity: on-site generation needs at least 2 kW nominal capacity per point below 50 kW, or 0.2 kW per kW of charging power for points of at least 50 kW. Purchased electricity needs a qualifying renewable-energy contract, without EEG subsidy, and cancelled origin certificates.

Employee points must be available to staff during normal working hours at a business site; company cars also used privately qualify, while points at employees’ homes do not. Outside working hours, other users may charge. Ambulant social-service support is for social, advice, care or similar services for older, ill, disabled or pregnant people. Public points need access for at least 12 hours on five days a week, an open-standard remote-capable IT backend, marked/signposted bays and compliance with LSV/AFIR. The public-charging branch is excluded if another NRW public-charging grant can still be obtained or drawn down.

Concepts must be independent, tailored to your site and provide concrete implementation recommendations. Advisers need relevant references from the past two years. Normally, one implementation concept per applicant and linked companies per calendar year, and one municipal charging concept per applicant per year, is funded. Municipal concepts and state-interest studies must not plan municipal market services, such as selling charging services or operating carsharing or reserve results exclusively for one business; publicly tendered charging-concept results must be accessible to all interested bidders.

Only battery-electric or fuel-cell vehicles qualify. New vehicles must have no current or previous storage damage and no more than 1,000 km; demonstration vehicles must have been registered once to a new-car dealer for viewings/test drives, with no more than 5,000 km and 12 months’ registration. Municipal vehicles must be used exclusively for non-economic activities. Holding or contract duration should be five years; shorter periods reduce the maximum grant proportionately, with a one-year minimum. Leasing/long-term rental grants cannot exceed the contractual down payment.

Federal and state bodies, companies in difficulty, companies that have not repaid aid ordered recovered by the European Commission and applicants covered by the exclusions in Article 1(2)–(6) of the EU General Block Exemption Regulation (AGVO) cannot apply. Funding does not cover work needed solely to meet legal or private contractual obligations; work beyond those obligations can qualify. Charging/vehicle self-builds, repairs, spare parts and prototypes with fewer than four examples are excluded; adapted series vehicles can qualify. Required permits should be ready when applying and must be submitted by the use report or payment claim.

Do not combine the same measure with other NRW/progres.nrw grants; NRW.BANK loans are allowed. Other aid must respect the applicable EU aid ceilings, and total state support plus earmarked revenue must not exceed eligible expenditure. However, income from using the funded charging equipment or vehicles does not reduce the grant. De-minimis support to a single undertaking is normally capped at €300,000 over three years. Municipal funding must support non-economic activities; separate economic activities, costs, financing and revenue to prevent cross-subsidy.

The EU “undertaking in difficulty” test includes insolvency proceedings or grounds for creditor-requested proceedings, an unpaid rescue loan or continuing rescue guarantee, or an ongoing restructuring plan. For limited-liability companies it also covers accumulated losses exceeding half the subscribed capital after reserves and other own funds are taken into account; for companies with an unlimited-liability member, the test concerns half the capital in the accounts. These capital-loss tests exempt SMEs less than three years old. A non-SME also meets the test if, for both preceding years, its book debt-to-equity ratio exceeds 7.5 (debt is more than 7.5 times equity in the accounts) and its EBITDA-to-interest ratio is below 1.0 (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation are less than interest expenses).

The EU exclusions include aid tied to export quantities or export-distribution operating costs, and aid conditional on using domestic rather than imported goods. Agricultural processing or marketing aid is excluded when based on product prices/quantities or passed on to primary producers. Fisheries and agriculture have activity-specific exceptions; environmental aid is an exception for primary agriculture. If you combine excluded and eligible activities, separate activities or costs so the excluded work receives no grant.

Status

Doorlopend open

Voorwaarden voor deze aanvraagronde

• Fast charging for eligible SMEs and municipal bodies only; municipal use must be non-economic.[^c12][^c13]
• Within available budgets; no entitlement to funding.[^c56]

Apply to Bezirksregierung Arnsberg using the relevant electronic category form. Obtain offers first; the form specifies required attachments and verifies your email/mobile by TAN codes. Housing charging and SME/municipal fast charging are currently accepting applications within available budgets. The rules expire on 30 June 2027 and may change earlier; this is not a guaranteed intake deadline.

Normally, wait for the award before placing a binding order, signing a purchase/installation contract or starting work. Planning and permitting do not count as project start. A conditional contract before approval requires an explicit written cancellation right, agreed from the outset, if the requested grant is refused, identifying progres.nrw and the mobility programme branch. A later agreement or goodwill cancellation is insufficient. Do not implement the project before approval.

Notify Arnsberg immediately of project changes or further funding for the same purpose. Before implementing a change that raises expenditure, submit the revised offer and wait for an amended award. Lower/same-cost changes still require notification. If you can recover VAT, only net expenditure counts. Follow the applicable procurement rules: under ANBest-P, total aid above €100,000 generally requires competitive purchasing with at least three offers where possible; more than 50% public financing and total aid above €500,000 trigger the specified formal procurement rules. For contracts up to €5,000 excluding VAT in the competitive-purchasing branches, published offers may be used with a documented price comparison or other justification of value for money. Municipalities follow their compulsory procurement law.

After completion, submit the use report and payment claim through the link in your award. Payment follows full examination, to a domestic account. Follow the timing in your award; the standard ANBest-P deadline is six months after fulfilment of the grant purpose and no later than six months after the award period, with an interim report within four months after year-end if the purpose is unfinished. ANBest-G has the same six-month limit for investments, but three months for operating-cost funding after completion and no later than three months after year-end. Keep grant, invoice and procurement records for five years after submitting the use report, or longer if another law requires it. Misuse, incorrect information, missed reporting/notification or procurement duties can lead to recovery with interest.