Country guide

Startup credits in Germany

A startup registered in Germany can apply to 1305 programs we track: 931 credit programs and 374 accelerators. 129 more are restricted to other countries, and they are named below.

Germany is the case where the entity question has a real answer rather than a shrug. The global cloud programs take a GmbH or a UG without comment. The domestic and EU-funded programs are the ones with rules, because public money arrives with conditions attached.

German Accelerator is the clearest example in our catalog. It is free and takes no equity, and it requires incorporation in Germany with a German legal entity, naming the UG, AG, GmbH and GmbH & Co. KG explicitly, plus SME status under the EU definition. That is a test no cloud provider runs.

What is open and what is not is counted from live data below. The programme map is the other half worth knowing: UnternehmerTUM in Munich grew out of the technical university, Startup Autobahn in Stuttgart is built around the automotive cluster, and APX in Berlin backs early companies with Porsche Digital and Axel Springer behind it.

Check what you qualify forBrowse all Germany programs

What your entity needs to be

A GmbH is the standard operating company and a UG is its low-capital sibling. For credits the programs treat both the same way, as a registered company: the commercial register entry and the tax number are what the forms want. The distinction shows up in domestic and EU-backed programmes, which test where the entity sits and how big it is, as German Accelerator does with its German-entity and SME requirements. A GbR or a freelance registration is the usual gap, because those are not the entity type these applications are built around. Moving the company to the US or Singapore for credits alone is a poor trade here: the restructuring is real and it can cost you the domestic programmes that require a German entity, which is one of the few places where the local form is worth more than the foreign one.

Open to German startups

The largest programs with no country restriction blocking you.

Closed to German startups, and why

These set a country allowlist that does not include Germany. We list them so you do not spend an evening on an application that cannot succeed.

Accelerators based in Germany

Questions founders here ask

For credits a UG is generally fine. It is a registered company with a commercial register entry, which is the level of detail applications work at, and German Accelerator names the UG among its accepted legal forms alongside the GmbH and the AG.

Citizenship is usually not the test; the entity and where it sits are. German Accelerator asks for incorporation in Germany and SME status under the EU definition rather than for a German passport. Requirements vary more here than in the cloud programs, so read each one.

They affect publicly funded programmes rather than commercial cloud grants. German Accelerator, for example, requires compliance with EU de-minimis aid rules. If you are stacking several state-backed programmes, that is the constraint to put in front of your accountant early rather than late.

Looking for accelerators instead?

Credits and accelerator programs are judged on different rules, so they have their own list.

Startup accelerators in Germany

Other countries

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