Italian grant revoked: what the supplier invoice must carry

Take a company that did everything right: grant decree obtained, bought what it had declared, paid by bank transfer, and the rendicontazione, the report of spend that unlocks reimbursement, filed on time. At payout stage it is hit by a revoca, the revocation of the grant, on the portion corresponding to one invoice, because on that invoice the unique project code sits in the subject line instead of in the field of the electronic invoice reserved for it. The document is correct on every other count, and the grant on that line is gone.

That invoice was issued by the supplier. In the chain of a software project the supplier is often the only party who never reads the bando, the call for applications that is the scheme’s own rulebook, because the beneficiary is the client. Audits read documents, though, and the documents they read are written by the supplier.

There is one more reason to redo the arithmetic now. From 1 January 2026 revocation, controls and eligibility of spend are governed by the Codice degli incentivi, the incentives code enacted as Legislative Decree 184 of 27 November 2025, which repealed Legislative Decree 123/1998 in full, the law that had governed the field since 1998, and with it paragraphs 8-quater and 8-quinquies of article 31 of Decree-Law 69/2013 on the DURC, the certificate of compliance with social security contributions. Almost every Italian guide in circulation, including those written by serious firms, still cites the repealed law.

The correction has two parts, because the code does not apply to everything. Article 25, paragraph 1 establishes that the rules of Chapter III govern bandi not yet published on 1 January 2026, while for bandi already published at that date “the previously applicable provisions continue to apply”. In September 2026 two regimes coexist, and to know which one governs a project you look at the publication date of the bando, not at the date of the application.

What follows are the five filters a software supplier’s invoice has to pass for the client’s grant to survive an audit, in the chronological order of a project, with the rule that imposes each one alongside it.

TL;DR

• From 1 January 2026 the Codice degli incentivi is in force (Legislative Decree 184/2025, article 28), having repealed Legislative Decree 123/1998 and paragraphs 8-quater and 8-quinquies of article 31 of Decree-Law 69/2013.
• Two regimes coexist. Article 25, paragraph 1 applies Chapter III to bandi not yet published on 1 January 2026; for those already published the previous provisions remain. What counts is the publication date of the bando.
• Application first, order second. The effetto di incentivazione, the incentive effect, requires a written application before work starts (article 6(2) of Regulation (EU) 651/2014), and the start of works coincides with the first legally binding commitment to order (article 2, point 23). MIMIT, the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy, asks for a date “neither coinciding with nor earlier than” the date of the application.
• De minimis: 300,000 euros per single undertaking over three years (article 3(2) of Regulation (EU) 2023/2831), counted over three rolling years from the grant decision. Whoever goes over loses the whole of the new aid, which is not cut back to the room still available (article 3(7)).
• The CUP goes in the dedicated field of the electronic invoice, not in the subject line (Ragioneria generale dello Stato, PNRR thematic appendix). An invoice missing the CUP and the required wording “triggers revocation of the corresponding portion of the grant” (MIMIT, Nuova Sabatini FAQ 10.7).
• From 27 January 2026 the CUP can be added after the fact through a web service of the Agenzia delle Entrate, the Italian revenue agency, with no credit notes, on invoices with a transaction date later than 31 May 2023 (Provision 563301/2025).
• Cash is not banned by the framework rule on cohesion funds, the bandi are what ban it (article 2, paragraph 2, letter d, of Presidential Decree 66/2025).
• Revocation costs the ECB rate plus five points in cases attributable to the beneficiary (article 17, paragraph 4), and subsidised assets have to stay in their intended use for three years in an SME and five in a large company (article 17, paragraph 2, letter c).

Which rules apply to the project on your desk

The answer sits in one date, the date the bando was published. Article 25, paragraph 1 of the code says it in so many words: “The provisions of Chapter III apply to bandi not yet published in the prescribed forms at the date of entry into force of this code; for bandi already published at that date, the previously applicable provisions continue to apply”. Chapter III runs from article 6 to article 19: eligible costs, cumulation, revocation, controls, which is exactly the subject matter of this article.

The hierarchy of sources keeps you from getting lost, and it holds under both regimes: European regulation, legal basis of the aid (block exemption or de minimis), Codice degli incentivi or Presidential Decree 66/2025 for spend on cohesion funds, and finally the bando. The bando can be stricter than the rules above it, never more permissive (article 1, paragraph 5 of Presidential Decree 66/2025, article 11, paragraph 2 of the code). Regions with ordinary statute, which is every Italian region bar the five with special autonomy, align with the code within their own legal orders (article 1, paragraph 3).

When can the order to the supplier be signed?

After the application has gone out, and not on the same day. MIMIT’s Nuova Sabatini FAQ, at 1.5, leaves nothing to interpretation: the investment programme “must be started on a later date, meaning a date neither coinciding with nor earlier than the date on which the application was transmitted to the lender by certified email”. Invitalia, the national development agency, says the same thing in a single line in the Resto al Sud FAQ: costs incurred before the application is submitted are not eligible.

The reason lies in the principle of the incentive effect, article 6(2) of Regulation (EU) 651/2014: “aid shall be considered to have an incentive effect if, before work on the project or activity starts, the beneficiary has submitted a written application for the aid to the Member State concerned”. The start of works is defined in article 2, point 23 as “the date of the first legally binding commitment to order equipment or of any other commitment that makes the investment irreversible, whichever occurs first”.

Put into the events of a software supply: the quote sent out is an offer and on its own binds nobody. What binds are the signature of acceptance, the order confirmation, the contract, the deposit banked. If one of those events carries a date earlier than or equal to the date of the application, what falls is the entire investment programme, which loses the incentive effect, rather than the single line item.

The same article 6(2) lists the minimum content of the written application: name and size of the undertaking, description of the project including its start and end dates, location, list of project costs, type of aid and amount of public funding needed. The project description, the dates and the list of costs come out of the supplier’s quote, which is why a quote written in commercial language slows down the client’s application before eligibility is even in question.

The number one risk for a supplier takes the shape of an enthusiastic client who suggests starting straight away and doing the paperwork afterwards. That client has already spent the grant.

How much is the de minimis ceiling, and what happens if you exceed it?

The ceiling is 300,000 euros per single undertaking over three years (article 3(2) of Regulation (EU) 2023/2831). Anyone who goes over loses the whole of the new aid: article 3(7) says that “where the granting of new de minimis aid would result in the ceiling being exceeded, that new aid shall not benefit from this Regulation”, so the amount is not trimmed back to the room still available.

The count is where almost everybody gets it wrong, and it changed in 2024. The regulation speaks of three years, and the period is a rolling one: it is counted backwards from the date of the grant decision. The Registro Nazionale Aiuti di Stato, the national state aid register, confirms this in its own FAQ, writing that from 1 January 2024 the ceiling is calculated over three calendar years from the date the aid was granted and no longer over three financial years. Guides still talking about “three financial years” are describing the old Regulation 1407/2013, the one that stopped at 200,000 euros.

Four clarifications that move the arithmetic on a real project.

• What counts is the grant decision, not the payout. Aid is considered granted “at the moment when the legal right to receive the aid is conferred on the undertaking under the applicable national legal regime, irrespective of the date of payment of the de minimis aid to the undertaking” (article 3(3)). The grant decree consumes the ceiling even if the transfer arrives a year later.
• It is counted as a gross grant equivalent, “before any deduction of tax or other charge” (article 3(5)). Guarantees and subsidised loans count for the advantage they carry, not for their face value.
• The perimeter is the single undertaking, the impresa unica. In a merger or an acquisition the de minimis aid of all the participating undertakings is added together (article 3(8)); in a demerger the aid goes to the undertaking that took over the activities it was used for, and failing that it is allocated in proportion to the book value of the share capital (article 3(9)).
• From 1 January 2026 there is a central register. Member States enter every de minimis grant in it within twenty working days and keep the data for ten years (article 6(1) to (3)), and new aid is paid out only once compliance with the ceiling has been checked (article 6(4)).

The register has not retired the undertaking’s own self-declaration, though. Article 7(4) requires it “pending the establishment of the central register and its covering a period of three years”: having started on 1 January 2026, the register will cover three years only from 2029. Until then responsibility for the truthfulness and completeness of the declaration stays with the beneficiary, including for aid that does not appear in the register. The regulation applies until 31 December 2030, with a further six months for grants that comply with it (article 7(3)).

The CUP on the invoice, and the service that fixes it from 27 January 2026

From 1 June 2023 invoices relating to the acquisition of goods and services covered by public incentives for productive activities have to contain the CUP, the codice unico di progetto or unique project code, as set out in the grant decision or communicated when the incentive was applied for (article 5, paragraph 6 of Decree-Law 13/2023, converted into law by Law 41/2023). For bandi published from 1 January 2026 article 11, paragraph 2, letter b, of the code repeats it, requiring spend documentation that is traceable and bears the unique project code.

Where it has to be written is the part that does the damage. The Ragioneria generale dello Stato, the state accounting office, is explicit in its thematic appendix on the duplication of funding under the PNRR, Italy’s recovery and resilience plan: the CUP “must be entered in the dedicated field provided and not only in the subject of the invoice”. The reason is mechanical. Controls cross-reference invoices by CUP, and a code written in a free-text field is cross-referenced by nobody.

MIMIT puts the consequence in writing in the Nuova Sabatini FAQ, at 10.7: an invoice “found to be without the CUP and the required wording is not considered valid and triggers revocation of the corresponding portion of the grant”. The required wording, in that scheme, is the reference to article 2, paragraph 4 of Decree-Law 69/2013, and it changes from bando to bando: read it in the text of the client’s bando, never copy it from another project.

The field in the electronic invoice is filled in by whoever issues the invoice, meaning the supplier. A billing error by the software house costs the client the grant, and the client finds out months later, at payout. Obsidian Technologies checks the CUP, the wording the bando requires and the separation of the line items on its own quote and on its own invoice before the invoice goes out, rather than at rendicontazione stage.

The remedy almost nobody knows about

From 27 January 2026, in the restricted area of the Agenzia delle Entrate’s Fatture e Corrispettivi portal, a web service is live that allows an omitted or incorrect CUP to be added to electronic invoices already transmitted to the Sistema di Interscambio, the exchange system every Italian electronic invoice passes through, with no credit notes and without reissuing the document. The basis is Provision 563301/2025 of the Director of the Agenzia, dated 10 December 2025.

Three details decide whether you actually need it:

• it covers invoices with a transaction date later than 31 May 2023 (point 1.2), so the whole span of the obligation;
• it is used by the cessionario or committente, the purchaser or client, or by an authorised intermediary (point 1.4): the correction starts from the client, and the most a supplier can do is hand over the exact list of invoice numbers to be fixed;
• it adds the missing or incorrect CUP, and every other condition the bando places on the content of the invoice still has to be met.

It is worth using as soon as the error surfaces, before the invoice reaches an audit with the field empty.

How you pay, and why payment is half the proof

Spend is eligible if it has been “actually incurred by the beneficiary and evidenced by receipted invoices or justified by accounting documents of equivalent probative value” (article 2, paragraph 2, letter b of Presidential Decree 66/2025, the regulation on eligibility criteria for spend under the 2021-2027 European funds, in force since 23 May 2025). The invoice proves the obligation, the receipt proves the spend, and an audit asks for both.

The same paragraph requires the spend to be traceable and verifiable through an adequate audit trail. In PNRR controls the Ragioneria lists the elements that have to guarantee that the spend can be traced precisely to the project: CUP, CIG (the tender identification code), the bank account used for the traceability of financial flows, the reference to the title of the operation and to the European funding.

On cash it pays to be precise, because the rule in circulation is stricter than the text. Presidential Decree 66/2025, article 2, paragraph 2, letter d, says that “cash payments are eligible in compliance with the applicable rules, without prejudice to stricter limits set by the Managing Authority and subject to the prohibition on artificial splitting”. The cash ban that almost every bando contains comes from the bando, and for whoever issues the invoice it has a single practical meaning: the limit is read in the bando, because in the bando it can be zero.

The ban on paying the supplier by offsetting receivables circulates in many guides about the Nuova Sabatini, together with the list of permitted instruments (bank transfer, SEPA Credit Transfer, RI.BA.). In the MIMIT FAQ and documents consulted for this article that ban appears nowhere in those words, and the claim turns up only on consultancy portals: it has to be verified against the directorial circular in force before the payment arrangements of a project are built on it.

The ban on buying from connected parties is verifiable, provided it is attributed to the right source. Invitalia writes it in the Resto al Sud FAQ: ineligible are “goods and services owned by one or more shareholders of the beneficiary where the shareholders are natural persons, or by their spouses or by relatives or relatives by marriage of those shareholders up to the third degree”. The Codice degli incentivi does not list it among the grounds for exclusion in article 9, so it remains a clause the bandi insert almost every time rather than a general rule of law. For a software house that has taken a stake in a client, or that invoices a family member’s company, the distinction is academic: the bando bans it anyway.

What the audit looks at afterwards, and for how long

Subsidised assets cannot be sold, transferred or diverted from their intended use before three years for SMEs and five for large companies from the date the investment was completed, unless the bando says otherwise (article 17, paragraph 2, letter c of the code). Revocation can be full or partial, provided it is proportionate to the breach found and follows what the bando defines (paragraph 3).

The arithmetic of a revoca sits in paragraph 4. The aid already drawn has to be repaid, with interest at the official reference rate of the European Central Bank in force on the date of the revocation measure. Where the requirements were absent, where the facts are attributable to the beneficiary, or where the business relocates, that rate is increased by five percentage points. Withdrawal from the scheme and recalculation for lower spend incurred carry no increase.

Article 17, paragraph 2 sets out the grounds for revocation, and three of them bear closely on a software project: documentation that is incomplete or irregular, cannot be remedied and is attributable to the beneficiary (letter a), failure to carry out the operation within the deadlines (letter b) and failure to comply with the cumulation limits (letter g). The others run from crisis or insolvency proceedings to a reduction in headcount and withdrawal from the scheme.

On European funds the obligation has a rule of its own, and a longer one. Article 65 of Regulation (EU) 2021/1060 requires the contribution to be repaid if within five years of the final payment the productive activity ceases or is relocated outside the NUTS 2 region, if a change of ownership brings an undue advantage, or if a substantial modification undermines the objectives. For investments and jobs created by SMEs the period can be reduced to three years.

The same invoice cannot be reported twice

Double funding and cumulation are two different things, and the Ragioneria has defined them side by side. The prohibition on double funding requires that “the same cost of an operation cannot be reimbursed twice from public funding sources, including sources of a different nature”. Cumulation, by contrast, “refers to the possibility of establishing a synergy between different forms of public support for an operation, which are thereby combined to cover different portions of a project”. The first is always forbidden, the second is allowed where it is regulated.

The European basis is article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2021/241: projects may be supported by other Union instruments “provided that such support does not cover the same cost”. Cumulation is regulated by the bando, by statutory obligation: article 12, paragraph 3 of the code requires the bando to carry specific provisions on the cumulation of more than one grant, and article 6, paragraph 1, letter f, puts it among the mandatory contents. Where the bando says nothing, you ask the granting body before issuing the invoice.

For a supplier the consequence is operational. If the client has already reported one of your invoices under one measure, that invoice is burnt for any other. A project co-financed by two sources needs separate, documented portions, and the question to put to the client in writing, before invoicing, is which measure will cover which portion. The instrument that makes double funding visible to an audit is still the CUP.

Two checks, finally, can stop the payout without anybody having got an invoice wrong. The DURC is obtained ex officio for grants aimed at investments and is valid for 120 days from issue (article 18, paragraph 3, letter b). If unpaid social security contributions come to light at payout, the substitute payment mechanism kicks in: the administration withholds the corresponding amount and pays it directly to the social security and insurance bodies (article 18, paragraph 4, letter a). For state aid other than de minimis the Deggendorf check on the Registro Nazionale Aiuti is added, and where a recovery order is pending “payment to the party concerned is barred until the matter is resolved” (article 18, paragraph 4, letter c).

What these rules do not say

Three line items typical of a software invoice have no cross-cutting rule, and anybody who hands you one is generalising from a single bando.

Recurring fees remain a gap. SaaS and cloud subscriptions, pay-as-you-go AI subscriptions and development costs capitalised under item B.I.2 of the balance sheet are the three lines on which a modern supply is most exposed, and none of the primary sources cited here lays down a general rule: they have to be checked bando by bando. What can be verified is narrower, and it concerns software capitalised as an intangible fixed asset, which MIMIT admits in the Nuova Sabatini (FAQ 6.4) both as system software and as application software with its own separate treatment as an intangible asset. How the client’s accountant books it decides more than the technical content of the supply does, and it is the reasoning behind the article on Nuova Sabatini and business software.

A simplification circulates about VAT. The sentence “VAT is not eligible if it is recoverable” describes the practice of Italian bandi well for a B2B client who deducts it, and as a quotation of the European regulation it is false. Article 64(1)(c) of Regulation (EU) 2021/1060 excludes VAT except, among other cases, “for operations the total cost of which is below EUR 5 000 000 (VAT included)”: below that threshold VAT is eligible even where it is recoverable. Presidential Decree 66/2025 refers to that rule in article 16, paragraph 1, and at paragraph 3 says that any other tax is eligible to the extent that it cannot be recovered by the beneficiary. It is worth saying so up front in the quote, because the client reasons on the invoice total while the grant is almost always calculated on the taxable amount.

Consulting changes its answer depending on the channel. In the Resto al Sud FAQ Invitalia gives “design work, consulting” as generally excluded; on cohesion funds article 16, paragraph 5 of Presidential Decree 66/2025 allows “costs for legal advice, costs of technical or financial expert opinions, and costs for accounting or auditing, where directly connected to the co-financed operation and necessary for its preparation or implementation”. Two regimes, two opposite answers to the same word, and the reason why the analysis part of a project is better described as an activity of the investment programme.

One piece of the code, finally, is still waiting on its implementing decree. Article 6, paragraph 2 defers to a decree of the Minister of Enterprises and Made in Italy for the uniform drafting of bandi, and article 11, paragraph 4 to a platform for the standardised classification of cost items. At the date of this article it was not possible to verify whether that decree has been adopted: until it is, the classification of cost items stays whatever each bando writes.

The mistakes that get the grant revoked

1. Signing the acceptance before sending the application. This is the mistake that costs everything, because it hits the incentive effect of the whole programme, not one line item. The same day as the application will not do: MIMIT asks for a date “neither coinciding with nor earlier than” it.

2. Writing the CUP in the subject of the invoice. Controls cross-reference the dedicated field, and whatever sits in the body of the document is read by no system.

3. Copying the wording from another project. The mandatory wording is defined by the bando, and the Nuova Sabatini one refers to a rule that has nothing to do with a chamber of commerce call.

4. Counting de minimis by financial years. From 1 January 2024 the count runs over three rolling years backwards from the date of the grant decision, and the grant decision weighs on the ceiling even when the payout has yet to arrive.

5. Treating the de minimis declaration as superseded. The central register started on 1 January 2026 and will cover three years only from 2029: until then the undertaking’s declaration is still due, and responsibility for its completeness lies with the beneficiary.

6. Reporting the same invoice under two measures. Failure to comply with the cumulation limits is a self-standing ground for revocation (article 17, paragraph 2, letter g), and the CUP makes the pairing visible.

7. Getting the submission channel wrong. Article 14, paragraph 2 is blunt: submission “by means differing from those laid down in the bando itself” is a ground for inadmissibility and cannot be cured through the soccorso istruttorio, the procedure for curing a defective application.

8. Trusting a guide that cites Legislative Decree 123/1998. That law has been repealed since 1 January 2026. Anybody citing it for revocation and penalties is describing a regime that, on bandi published from that date, no longer exists.

FAQ

Are costs incurred before the application eligible?

No. The principle of the incentive effect requires the written application to precede the start of works (article 6(2) of Regulation (EU) 651/2014), and the start of works coincides with the first legally binding commitment to order or with any commitment that makes the investment irreversible. MIMIT specifies that the start date has to be later than the date the application was transmitted, and not the same one.

The invoice has already gone out with no CUP: can it be fixed?

Yes. From 27 January 2026 the Agenzia delle Entrate’s Fatture e Corrispettivi portal offers, in its restricted area, a web service for adding an omitted or incorrect CUP to invoices already transmitted to the Sistema di Interscambio, with no credit notes. It covers invoices with a transaction date later than 31 May 2023, and it is used by the client or by an authorised intermediary.

How are the three years of the de minimis ceiling counted?

Over three rolling years counted backwards from the date the aid was granted, rather than over three financial years. The ceiling is 300,000 euros per single undertaking, and aid is considered granted when the right to receive it arises, irrespective of when it is paid.

If I exceed the ceiling, will the grant be trimmed back to the room still available?

No. Article 3(7) of Regulation (EU) 2023/2831 establishes that new aid resulting in the ceiling being exceeded does not benefit from the regulation. The whole of the new aid falls out of de minimis, and if it finds no other legal basis it becomes aid to be recovered.

Does the central de minimis register replace the self-declaration?

Not yet. Article 7(4) requires the undertaking’s declaration pending the register covering a period of three years; since it started on 1 January 2026, full coverage arrives in 2029. Until then truthfulness and completeness remain the beneficiary’s responsibility.

Can the supplier be paid in cash?

The framework rule on cohesion funds allows cash payments in compliance with the applicable rules, without prejudice to stricter limits set by the Managing Authority and to the prohibition on artificial splitting (article 2, paragraph 2, letter d of Presidential Decree 66/2025). In practice almost every bando rules them out, so the applicable limit is the one written in the bando.

Which rules apply if the bando was published in 2025?

The previous ones. Article 25, paragraph 1 of the code applies Chapter III (eligible costs, cumulation, revocation, controls) only to bandi not yet published on 1 January 2026. For a project the right question is when the bando was published, not when the application was submitted.

How much does a revocation cost?

Repayment of the grants used, with interest equal to the official ECB reference rate in force at the date of the revocation measure, increased by five percentage points where the revocation stems from the absence of the requirements, from facts attributable to the beneficiary or from relocation. Where there is a withdrawal or a recalculation for lower spend, the increase does not apply.

The five checks to run before issuing the invoice

Five questions, two minutes, and they belong before the document goes out, because afterwards a remedy exists for one of them only.

1. The date. The application has been sent, and the acceptance of the order carries a later date. Not the same one.
2. The CUP. Present in the dedicated field of the electronic invoice, copied from the grant decision character for character.
3. The wording. The one the client’s bando asks for, in the text of the invoice, read from the bando and not from an earlier project.
4. The line items. Split by type the way the rendicontazione asks for them, with a technical description that says what was built instead of what it promises to improve.
5. The chain around it. Traceable payment with a reference that recalls the invoice, no corporate or family link between the parties, and written confirmation from the client that the invoice has not already been reported under another measure.

If you have a grant decision in hand and a software project to fit inside it, talk it through with us: half an hour is enough to say which line items survive an audit, how they should be described in the quote and which documents the client needs before the application.

The schemes where these rules can be watched at work, each with its own exceptions: the Voucher Doppia Transizione 2026, the chamber of commerce grant, for companies already trading, Autoimpiego and Resto al Sud 2.0 for anyone opening now, and the Nuova Sabatini, where the eligibility of software depends on the balance-sheet line the client books it under.

Sources: the Codice degli incentivi on Normattiva, Regulation (EU) 2023/2831 on de minimis, the electronic invoicing area of the Agenzia delle Entrate for the CUP integration service, the MIMIT Nuova Sabatini FAQ and Presidential Decree 66/2025 in the Gazzetta Ufficiale. Plus the PNRR thematic appendix of the Ragioneria generale dello Stato on the duplication of funding and the FAQ of the Registro Nazionale Aiuti di Stato. Information verified against the legal texts on 13 September 2026: the framework changed on 1 January 2026 and every bando can narrow it, so the text of the bando and the agency FAQ should be reread before committing money.