# Hyper-depreciation, regional grants and chamber vouchers: how to choose Author: Quadra URL: https://quadra-website.matt-madd.chatgpt.site/risorse/articoli/come-scegliere-incentivo-ai Published: 2026-09-18 Updated: 2026-09-18 Language: en Reading time: 4 min There is no best incentive. There is the one compatible with your project, and it needs to be chosen before you sign. ## At a glance - Choose an incentive after defining a useful project: the funding scheme should fit the work, not the other way around. - Compare eligibility, allowable expenses, timing, cash needs and constraints before committing. - A clear map of processes, systems and goals makes it easier to work with whoever handles the application. Anyone searching for incentives for an AI project finds two things: dozens of articles listing open funding calls, and nobody explaining how to decide which one to use. Lists are useful, and they change every week. For those, it is best to go directly to the sources that update them: regional portals, chambers of commerce, Invitalia and MIMIT. Here, we attempt the other task: explaining the criteria that stay the same even when the funding calls change. ## The four instruments, briefly **Hyper-depreciation** is national, has no imminent deadline and does not favour one applicant over another: if you meet the requirements, you use it. It does not give you money; it reduces tax, so it only works if you have profit against which to apply it. **Regional grants** provide non-repayable contributions, often between 40% and 50% of expenditure. They cover a much narrower pool, so competition is lower, but require an operating site in that region and have short application windows. **Chamber of commerce vouchers** work like regional grants but at provincial level, with smaller amounts and faster procedures. **Nuova Sabatini** concerns the financed purchase of capital equipment, and can be combined with almost everything else. ## The five deciding criteria **1. How you buy.** This is the criterion that derails the most projects, and it needs careful handling. Hyper-depreciation applies to assets the company owns and depreciates, so subscription fees are excluded. Some regional grants take the opposite approach and also admit licences and cloud services. Be careful about what that does and does not mean. It does not mean choosing the solution based on what the incentive covers: if a subscription tool solves your problem, buying an alternative to chase a deduction is a poor deal, because the incentive covers a fraction of the cost and you are left with the wrong solution for years. It means that when both routes solve the problem, the contractual form becomes a variable to decide consciously and in the right order. Anyone who signs a subscription and then discovers they wanted hyper-depreciation has lost the incentive, and there is no going back. **2. When you spend.** Almost all grants exclude expenditure incurred before submitting the application, and hyper-depreciation requires reserving the investment on the GSE platform before completing it. The practical rule is simple: no orders, no deposits and no signed contracts until the application process is underway. **3. A grant or a tax saving.** A grant provides non-repayable funds, so it also works for a company that breaks even or makes a loss. Hyper-depreciation provides a deduction, worth zero without taxable profit. Before choosing, look at the accounts, not the funding call. **4. What the measure rewards.** Some instruments fund the adoption of technologies in internal processes, others the development of innovative solutions to bring to market. These are different things, and a project written for the wrong type gets rejected even if it is excellent. Read the declared objective before the percentages. **5. Combining incentives and thresholds.** Several instruments can be combined on the same investment, subject to State aid rules, and most regional grants fall under the de minimis regime, which has a total ceiling per business over three years. If the company has received grants recently, that ceiling needs checking before structuring the project. ## The real bottleneck In the funding calls we have read, the most demanding part is never the paperwork. It is describing the project. You need to say which process you want to change, with which technology, connected to which systems, with what expected result, and itemised expenditure. A generic quotation, such as “AI solution development”, is the most frequent cause of disputes during expense reporting. The interesting point is that this work is necessary anyway, incentive or not. A project that cannot be described precisely is usually not yet a project: it is an intention. ## The right order Those who start with a funding call end up adapting the project to the measure, and find themselves with something funded that nobody in the company wanted. The order that works is the reverse: 1. Identify the process to improve and the expected result. 2. Define the solution and how it integrates with existing systems. 3. Only then choose the measure, and adjust the purchasing arrangement and timing accordingly. If no measure is compatible with the right solution, proceed anyway: a useful project remains worthwhile without an incentive. 4. Involve your accountant and, where needed, a technical assessor before signing anything. An incentive can change a project's price, and sometimes when it makes sense to start. It cannot turn a bad project into a good one. ## Sources and further reading **Where to find current funding calls:** regional portals (in Lombardy, Regione Lombardia's Bandi e Servizi) · chamber of commerce and Unioncamere websites · Invitalia · MIMIT. Lists change weekly: always check amounts and deadlines on the official source for each funding call. - [Regione Lombardia · Bandi e Servizi](https://www.bandi.regione.lombardia.it/) — Publication date not stated. Accessed: 2026-09-18. - [Unioncamere](https://www.unioncamere.gov.it/) — Publication date not stated. Accessed: 2026-09-18. - [Invitalia](https://www.invitalia.it/) — Publication date not stated. Accessed: 2026-09-18. - [MIMIT · Incentivi](https://www.mimit.gov.it/it/incentivi-mise) — Publication date not stated. Accessed: 2026-09-18.