More productive, more sovereign: the case for an EU SME digitalisation voucher scheme
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Evidence from SME digitalisation voucher programmes in Spain, France, Croatia, Denmark, Portugal, Austria, Japan and Singapore demonstrates significant economic benefits, including productivity gains of up to 6.4%. Across these schemes, 72% of participating firms reported improvements in productivity, business processes and innovation.
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Introducing an EU-wide SME Digitalisation Voucher Scheme, complemented by technological sovereignty criteria, would stimulate private-sector demand for trusted European digital solutions, strengthen Europe’s digital resilience and accelerate SME competitiveness across sectors.
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The Tech Sovereignty Package and the European Competitiveness Fund provide a timely opportunity to scale SME Digitalisation Voucher Scheme, aligning support for digital adoption with Europe’s technological sovereignty objectives.
Europe has heavily invested into SME digitalisation: the State of the Digital Decade 2025 reports a total investment of 48.2 billion euros [1]. Among the measures, some Member States proposed voucher programmes supported by EU recovery funds. The first generation of these programmes has worked. Evidence shows that voucher-based instruments drive adoption, raise digital intensity and produce tangible competitiveness gains for participating firms.
The next step is to scale this approach at EU level, ensuring that public support to SME digitalisation also strengthens Europe’s technological sovereignty. Furthermore, it is of particular urgency to increase the efforts in SME digitalisation, given that currently only 67.9% of European SMEs are expected to meet the 2030 digitalisation targets, falling well short of the 90% objective set by the European Union’s Digital Decade strategy.
The introduction of an EU-wide SME digitalisation voucher scheme would stimulate demand for trusted European digital solutions, strengthen Europe’s digital resilience and accelerate SME competitiveness across sectors.
The scheme could build on the success of national programmes while introducing digital sovereignty criteria that encourage the adoption of technologies under European operational and legal control. A common European approach would also help ensure a more coordinated and homogeneous digital transformation across the Single Market.
What the evidence shows
Spain’s Kit Digital alone has granted more than 937,000 vouchers and contributed to measurable improvements in productivity, innovation and business performance. Among participating SMEs, 65% reported a medium or high contribution to productivity improvements, 72% reported improvements in internal processes, 69% reported reductions in time costs, and 63% reported improvements in innovation processes [2]. The positive impact of the vouchers is also reflected in the overall improvement of SME digitalisation in Spain. The country performs strongly in terms of SMEs’ digitalisation, with the 75.4% of firms reaching basic digital intensity, while the annual growth rate of SME digitalisation stands at 11.6%, exceeding the EU average [3].
Similar initiatives in other Member States, have shown that targeted financial support can successfully encourage companies to invest in digital tools and technologies, choice that in many cases they would otherwise postpone. Portugal has adopted an approach based on programmes such as Vale i4.0 and dedicated RRP measures backed by approximately €650 million in public funding. Portuguese initiatives combine vouchers with digital skills training, coaching and technical assistance for SMEs. Croatia has also established a voucher system aimed at helping SMEs digitalise their business models, strengthen digital capabilities and improve cybersecurity, complemented by grants for digital equipment and support for European Digital Innovation Hubs.
Voucher-based support is often integrated into broader national digitalisation strategies. Denmark‘s SME programme provides grants enabling SMEs to engage specialised consultants to design and implement digital transformation projects, while Austria‘s KMU.DIGITAL scheme subsidises both digital assessments and subsequent investments. In France, the France Num initiative has focused on reducing information barriers by creating a centralised platform through which SMEs can identify available digitalisation funding opportunities, advisory services and training programmes.
National reports under the State of the Digital Decade 2026 show France, Austria, and Portugal are aligned with, the 11% EU average SME digitalisation annual progress, while Denmark has already met the 90% target set for 2030 under the Strategy [4].
Voucher-based digitalisation subsidies have delivered measurable results well beyond the EU. Singapore‘s SMEs Go Digital programme has supported around 88,000 SMEs between 2017 and 2024: approximately 30% of the country’s SME population. Early impact data shows productivity and revenue gains of up to 6.4% for micro firms [5]. In Japan, the IT Implementation Subsidy has delivered a 3.4% increase in labour productivity among supported SMEs in the early phase of implementation [6].
How to operationalise the voucher scheme
Relevant EU initiatives, including the Tech Sovereignty Package and the Competitiveness Fund, provide an opportunity to establish a long-term framework for SME digitalisation.
It would then be of particular importance to add a sovereignty-based eligibility criterion to make sure that the vouchers support the construction of a more resilient tech ecosystem in Europe, rewarding the adoption of solutions meeting defined criteria around jurisdiction, data control and interoperability.
The Tech Sovereignty Package can serve as a foundation for the eligibility criterion. For example, the sovereign cloud levels proposed in the Cloud and AI Development Act could be used as a starting point for defining technological sovereignty, with its scope expanded beyond cloud services to encompass the full digital technology stack.
From an operational point of view, a reference for such a framework already exists. The Tech Sovereignty Catalogue efficiently maps available European digital solutions across the full technology stack and can function as a navigation tool for SMEs and the intermediaries advising them, translating abstract sovereignty ambitions into concrete product choices.
Finally, from a financing point of view, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan-based programmes that supported the first wave of SME digitalisation schemes were recovery instruments designed for rapid and time-limited deployment. Financing mechanisms like the Competitiveness Fund are now suited to transforming SME digitalisation and strategic resilience into long-term objectives. A stable incentive aligned with sovereignty criteria would complement national schemes and create harmonisation across Member States, ensuring that impact also addresses the persistent delay in meeting established digitalisation targets.
Conclusions and call to action
By combining SME digitalisation objectives with technological sovereignty goals, Europe can create a virtuous circle: helping businesses become more productive and competitive while strengthening demand for European digital solutions and reducing strategic dependencies on non-EU providers.
Are you a tech solution provider or an SME embracing its digital transformation journey? Do you want to support a call for SME digitalisation voucher?
[1] https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/state-digital-decade-2025-report
[2] https://kitdigital.red.es/evaluacion-de-impacto
[3] https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/digital-decade-2026-country-reports
[4] https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/digital-decade-2026-country-reports
