If you are planning an AI project and counting on a LIAA grant of up to €200,000, the news is bad: this call is closed. Applications ended on 7 November 2025 at 17:00, and the LIAA page announces no restart. The rules are still a useful checklist if a similar call appears.
What the programme was and where it stands
The programme is “Support for process digitalisation and artificial intelligence solutions”, run by LIAA under the EU cohesion policy programme 2021-2027 on Cabinet Regulation No. 748 of 26 November 2024. Applications opened on 21 July 2025.
The budget was €18.55 million. Companies asked for €25.5 million, so demand exceeded funds. LIAA publishes a list of signed contracts as of 10 July 2026, so projects are already running. On resuming digitalisation support, LIAA writes that it is not currently planned and asks applicants to follow its official channels.
What it paid for AI projects
AI development and implementation could get up to €200,000; buying digital solutions and a digital maturity assessment up to €10,000. Aid intensity was 50% for small, 40% for medium and 30% for small and medium mid-cap companies (LIAA, July 2025). You still fund most of the cost yourself.
The aid was de minimis under Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/2831. It counts toward your three-year de minimis ceiling, so know your earlier aid before you apply.
Eligible applicants: micro, small and medium enterprises, small and medium mid-caps, sole traders, and associations or foundations with economic activity that unite at least three companies. The applicant had to be registered in Latvia, free of sanctions, with tax debt of at most €150, and outside excluded sectors such as gambling, real estate operations and most finance.
What counted as a cost
Eligible: new digital solutions and their implementation, licences and subscriptions during the project, and for AI the development, data collection and processing, infrastructure upkeep and robotisation.
Not eligible:
- standard office and computer equipment;
- maintenance of existing software or new functions in it (AI is the exception);
- user documentation;
- work or investment already made;
- real estate.
Consulting could not exceed the part of the grant spent on other eligible costs.
How the process worked
- Get quotes from at least three comparable suppliers and document the market research before applying.
- Apply through business.gov.lv; LIAA evaluates each application within a month.
- Sign a contract with LIAA after a positive result.
- File the payment request within three months of completion, and no later than 31 August 2029.
Costs counted from the day of application, but work could not finish before the LIAA contract. No 100% advance payment. From €70,000 excluding VAT, procurement followed Cabinet Regulation No. 104 through iub.gov.lv. Invoices had to carry the LIAA contract number, and the project needed its own ledger account.
From the development side we add one thing: three suppliers cannot quote the same work if the brief is “implement AI”. The process, the data and the success measure have to be written down first.
What to prepare now
Nobody knows the date of a next call. This is useful either way:
- Pick one process, such as sorting incoming requests or document handling, with figures: how often, how many minutes, who does it.
- Check your data: where it lives, whether it may go to an AI service, whether it stays in the EU. See AI automation for small business.
- Clean up your status: tax debt, SME status, sector, earlier de minimis aid.
- Write a technical description: what the system does and does not do, where a person steps in, how results are measured. If it talks to customers, see the EU AI Act checklist.
- Buy and start nothing before the evaluation result.
- Ask whether the project pays without a grant. If it only works with aid, that is the real question.
Conclusion
If you need AI now, budget without a grant. If you can wait, prepare the process description, data and status so you can apply the day a call opens. Check business.gov.lv and LIAA channels; this article reflects 12 November 2026.
We build AI automation and integrations with CRM and ERP. To find which process is worth automating and how to describe it, discuss your project.
