1 · Company size
Size sets your aid ceiling. It is the single most consequential answer here — a small company can receive nearly twice what a large one can on the same project.
2 · What kind of work is it?
Industrial research carries a materially higher ceiling. Most company-led product projects are experimental development; work that is genuinely investigative, with results intended to be generalisable, can qualify as industrial research.
3 · Is there effective collaboration?
Effective collaboration with a research organisation or another company — or wide dissemination of results — adds 15 percentage points. It is the cheapest ceiling increase available, and it is why R&D projects with a research partner can be funded so much further.
4 · Total project cost
5 · Which sources are in play?
Tick everything you could realistically pursue. The tool shows which of them compete for the same ceiling and which do not count against it at all — that distinction is where most of the headroom hides.
The three things almost everyone gets wrong
Private money is not aid. A pilot customer paying toward your development is commercial revenue, not public support. It does not touch your ceiling. That is what makes the Innovasjonskontrakt structure so efficient: the grant takes you to the ceiling, the customer's contribution sits outside it entirely, and between them very little own capital is left to find.
A loan is not a grant. An innovasjonslån gives you cash for the share the grant cannot cover. Only the subsidy element of a soft loan counts as aid, not the principal — so a loan can finance your own contribution without eating the ceiling that the grants are competing for. Banks will often lend against a committed innovasjonslån and a signed grant, which is how the own-share problem usually gets solved in practice.
Sequence decides eligibility. Grants must be applied for before the project starts, because the incentive-effect rule requires that the aid changed your behaviour. Start the work first and you can still claim SkatteFUNN, but you have permanently lost the grants. The correct order is: apply for the grants, then run SkatteFUNN alongside — never the reverse.
Getting the stack right is arithmetic. Winning the grant is not.
This tool tells you how much you could receive. It cannot tell you whether your application will survive assessment. Upload it and get an independent, criteria-aligned review in 5–8 minutes, with every finding located, explained and paired with a fix.
Sources and limits
Aid intensities are those published by Forskningsrådet in the SkatteFUNN state-aid guidance: industrial research 70% small / 60% medium / 50% large, rising to 80% / 75% / 65% with effective collaboration; experimental development 45% / 35% / 25%, rising to 60% / 50% / 40%. SkatteFUNN gives a 19% tax deduction, counted as net support and grossed up against the ceiling (roughly 24–25% at a 22% tax rate). The de minimis ceiling is EUR 300 000 per single undertaking over three fiscal years. Innovasjonskontrakt does not publish a fixed rate — the support follows these same state-aid ceilings and varies with company size and need, which is why a small company's experimental-development project so often lands at 45%.
This is a planning tool, not a determination. Your actual award depends on your case officer, your scheme's own conditions and the classification of your work. If accumulated public support exceeds the ceiling, SkatteFUNN is the part that gets reduced or removed — and that is established at final-year attestation by your auditor, potentially requiring repayment. Verify with your case officer and your auditor before you commit.
GrantWise is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of Innovasjon Norge, Forskningsrådet, Skatteetaten, the European Commission or any other authority. Nothing here is tax, legal or accounting advice.