❯ stephanzych grants --region brussels
Self-employed or an SME in Brussels? The Region can cover 25 to 70% of your web project. Here's what the official texts actually say: no promises, and with the sources.
Verified on 6 August 2026 with Bruxelles Économie et Emploi. Only the official conditions prevail.
why-these-grants-exist
The Brussels-Capital Region does not fund these grants out of generosity. It has noticed that a great many small companies keep postponing the digital work they know they need, because the quote always lands at the wrong moment. The regional logic is straightforward: a company whose website converts, loads fast and holds up under load generates more activity, so more employment, so more tax revenue. Covering part of the invoice accelerates a decision you were going to make anyway. Later, and often too late.
For you the consequence is concrete, and slightly counter-intuitive. The grant should not make you spend more. It should let you do properly, now, what you were going to do halfway in eighteen months. That is where the real return sits: not in the few thousand euros recovered, but in the months of delay you don't accumulate.
This matters particularly if you run an international business from Brussels. Founders who arrived here for the institutions, the talent pool or the location routinely assume regional support is for Belgian-owned companies only. It isn't. What counts is that your company is an SME with an operating office in the Brussels-Capital Region and an eligible activity, not the passport of its owners or the language of its board meetings.
Worth keeping in mind
eligible-projects
I stick strictly to what the official texts name. What they don't name, I say so too. That's more useful than an optimistic list.
What the official text explicitly names
The Prime Digitalisation text covers « le développement ou l'amélioration technique du site internet de votre entreprise » (the technical development or improvement of your company's website). That is the official wording, and it is broad: it speaks of development and technical improvement, not of graphic design or copywriting.
A site that no longer holds up, a structure that has become unmanageable, technical debt blocking every change, a foundation that needs rebuilding properly. That is technical improvement in the sense of the text. The job is to demonstrate it in the offer.
Pages taking eight seconds to render, a server falling over during peaks, a checkout that breaks on mobile. These are precise technical problems with a measurable before and after: exactly the mission profile the scheme expects.
The second domain the grant names: digitalising internal processes, means of production, or products and services. Connecting your website to your back office, removing double data entry, automating an order pipeline.
The third named domain. A security audit, fixing vulnerabilities, bringing a platform that has gone too long without updates back to a supported state.
your-case
Describe it to me. I'll tell you honestly whether it can be framed as a technical improvement, or whether this isn't the right route. Check my eligibility →
What the official text excludes, or doesn't say
The text is unambiguous: the mission must have « un caractère exceptionnel visant à résoudre un problème ponctuel » (an exceptional character, solving a specific one-off problem) and « il ne s'agit pas d'une mission de sous-traitance permanente et régulière ». A monthly retainer does not fit. A bounded project with a start, an end and a deliverable does.
None of the official pages I consulted mentions SEO or search visibility. The Prime Consultance named « la stratégie de communication », which might have come close, but it is suspended from 12 August 2026. So I won't tell you your SEO is subsidised. Technical work on the site, on the other hand, is named in black and white.
I found no official source connecting web accessibility to these grants. I would rather tell you that than assert it.
These grants fund an external consultancy mission, not purchases. The official FAQ notes, for the equipment grant, that software is excluded because it is an intangible asset.
the-grants
Only one of the three regional grants names your website, and it is also the only one still open after 12 August 2026.
Available
The only one of the three that explicitly names your website, and the only one still open after 12 August 2026. It covers almost every web project.
Main conditions
Two other regional grants exist, but neither targets the web, and both are suspended from 12 August 2026: Prime Consultance · Prime Consultance transition économique
estimate
Enter your project budget excluding VAT and pick the rate matching your situation. The result is an indicative estimate calculated with the rates published by the Region. Not a commitment, and certainly not a guarantee that a grant will be awarded.
Worked example — For a €10,000 project excluding VAT, at the three rates the administration itself gives as examples.
| Project budget | Rate | Estimated grant | Estimated real cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| €10,000 | 25 % | €2,500 | €7,500 |
| €10,000 | 50 % | €5,000 | €5,000 |
| €10,000 | 70 % | €7,000 | €3,000 |
how-it-works
Five steps, in this order. The third is the one that sinks applications: the request comes before the work starts.
01
A call to understand what you want to achieve. If the project makes no sense without the grant, I'll say so then. Only after that do we look at whether it fits the criteria.
02
A written offer, valid at the time of application, describing a bounded mission with a specific problem to solve. It's one of the required attachments, and it's how I work anyway.
03
This is the rule that sinks the most applications: it must be submitted no later than the day before the mission starts, through the MonBEE platform. Your company submits it; a third party can do it for you with a signed mandate.
04
An incomplete file is flagged within 15 days, with one month to complete it. The decision arrives at most 4 months after a complete file is received. The mission can begin the day after the application, and at the latest 3 months after the grant notification.
05
I invoice you, you pay. You then have 12 months from the notification to submit supporting documents. The Region tells you the amount, you return a declaration of claim, and the grant is paid in one instalment. It counts as taxable income for your company.
what-i-do
I'm an independent Brussels web developer with fifteen years behind me, from the company website to the complex platform: website development in Brussels with TypeScript, Next, Nuxt and Laravel, and WordPress development in Brussels where WordPress is genuinely the right tool. On a grant-eligible project my role is twofold: deliver the technical work, and give you the documents you'll be asked for. A precise offer, a bounded mission, a demonstrable deliverable.
full-stack
Teams that need a senior engineer who can build the whole thing, not just one layer.
Web platforms built end to end (interface, application, and the APIs underneath) with TypeScript, Next, Nuxt, Laravel, or WordPress where they fit, and whatever else the job actually calls for.
Production software, documented and owned by you.
devops
Teams whose deploys are slow, manual, or scary.
Docker, CI/CD, and cloud infrastructure on AWS or DigitalOcean: deployment pipelines and environments that ship themselves and stay up.
Releases that are routine instead of an event.
consulting
Teams facing decisions that a permanent CTO hire would be too much for.
A senior pair of hands on the hard calls: architecture, technical direction, and the trade-offs that decide whether a build succeeds or stalls.
Decisions made and owned, with someone accountable for the trade-offs.
code-audit
Investors weighing a deal, or founders deciding whether to extend or rebuild.
An independent read on a codebase, architecture, or team, delivered as findings and recommendations you can act on, not a vague score.
A clear, defensible basis for an expensive decision.
training
Teams that want to level up their engineering practice for good.
Hands-on sessions built around a team's own codebase: language, tooling, workflow, and the practices that make change cheaper.
A team that ships with more confidence and needs less rescuing.
ai-engineering
Teams adopting coding agents who need it to be an engineering practice, not a per-developer experiment.
One shared configuration for rules, tool access and reusable instructions, versioned with the code and applied whichever tool a developer drives; deterministic checks and reviewed diffs around every change; sandboxing the tooling cannot switch off; and working sessions on where this earns its place and where it doesn't.
One way of working the whole team follows, with the risky parts contained.
faq
It depends on your sector, and it isn't guesswork. Your company must be an SME with at least one operating office in the Brussels-Capital Region, active in an admitted sector. The administration states that your activity is determined primarily from your NACE VAT code and your articles of association. The list of admitted sectors for consultancy and digitalisation is published as an official PDF annex. That annex is what counts, and you need to check your own code against it. Note that the NACE-BEL 2008 codes have been replaced by NACE-BEL 2025.
No, and this is the rule that sinks the most applications. The application must be submitted « au plus tard la veille du début de la mission » (no later than the day before the mission starts). The official FAQ confirms it for the scheme as a whole: what matters is that the application is submitted before the subsidised action begins. Once submitted, you do not have to wait for the decision to start: the mission can begin the next day, and at the latest 3 months after the grant notification.
Technical work on the site, yes. It's written down. The Prime Digitalisation covers the technical development or improvement of your company's website. Two important nuances: the text speaks of development and technical improvement, not of graphic design or copywriting; and the mission must have an exceptional character solving a specific one-off problem, so a bounded project rather than a subscription. The administration assesses each concrete mission on the basis of the offer attached to your file.
If your file is incomplete you are notified within 15 days and have one month to complete it. The decision to grant or refuse arrives at most 4 months after a complete file is received. You then have 12 months from the notification to submit supporting documents. Payment is made in a single instalment after you return your declaration of claim. Good news for planning: the mission can start the day after the application, without waiting for the decision.
You do. The obligation sits with your company: it must submit the application before starting the mission, through the MonBEE platform. A third party can file on your behalf, but only with a written mandate signed by someone legally empowered to bind the company. That mandate is one of the listed attachments. My role is to supply what you'll be asked for: a valid offer, a project manager's CV, and a mission described precisely enough to be assessed.
Yes. The provider invoices you, you pay, and the grant is reimbursed afterwards, once supporting documents are submitted and the declaration of claim returned. So plan cash flow for the full amount, not the net amount. Two details worth remembering: the rates apply to admitted costs excluding VAT, and the grant counts as taxable income for your company, so it must appear in your tax return.
No, there is no list of accredited providers. The official FAQ is explicit: the company chooses its own consultant, within the stated conditions. The provider must have consultancy as its main activity, be specialised in the relevant field, have been practising for at least 2 years, be able to evidence substantial competence through references, be independent of your company, and invoice you directly. The administration also accepts that the project manager can evidence the required experience gained as an employee.
The project has to stand up without it. That's exactly why I scope the project before looking at grants, and not the other way round. No grant is secured in advance: the administration assesses every file, the official conditions are the only ones that count, and they can change. The 12 August 2026 suspension is a recent demonstration of that.
disclaimer
This page is a summary written by a service provider, not an official document. Only the conditions published by Bruxelles Économie et Emploi prevail. They can change at any time, and they are about to: from 12 August 2026, two of the three regional grants are suspended.
I am not a public counter, an accredited intermediary, or a subsidy consultant. I cannot guarantee that a grant will be awarded. Nobody can. No grant is secured before the administration notifies its decision, and a project should make sense even if the answer is no.
Every figure and condition on this page comes from the official pages listed below, consulted on 6 August 2026. Where the official sources say nothing (SEO, accessibility, combining several grants), this page says so rather than filling the gap.
Official sources consulted on 6 August 2026
start
Describe your project in a few lines. I'll tell you honestly whether it stands up, and whether it can fit the grant's criteria. Working in English is no problem.
A reply within one working day.
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No long form, no middleman: you're writing straight to the person who'll do the work.