The government pays for your new fridge (if you apply early)

One warning: swapping equipment for another fossil-fuel unit is excluded, natural gas included. If you were going to renew a gas cook line for another gas line, this won't help you.

Spend is eligible from 1 March 2026.

Meaning: if your cold room died in March and you replaced it in a rush, that invoice can count. You only need the invoice and proof of payment to fall between 1 March and 20 October 2026.

Two dates that catch people out:

• 20 October: everything done and paid. Ordering it isn't enough.
• 31 October: justification submitted.

This aid is paid afterwards. You buy the kit, install it, pay for it, justify it. Then they pay the grant in one go.

With a calendar this tight, the most likely outcome is that you have to pay for the equipment before you know if you've been awarded it.

Translation: you need €9,000 or €11,000 available for several months. If your cash can't take that, this aid isn't for you even if you meet every requirement. Better to know today than in October.

€15 million, at a max of €11,000 per venue, covers 1.363 establecimientos. If the average drops to €5,000, it covers 3,000.

In Spain there are over 300,000 hospitality establishments.

Do the division: this reaches between 0,5% y el 1% del sector. And because it's first come first served, it doesn't go to who needs it most, but to who has the paperwork ready on 5 August at 10:00.

The bottleneck isn't the form. It's the energy-savings report signed by a qualified technician. You can't improvise that. If you start looking for an expert the day the window opens, you're already late.

At Tipi we know this doesn't end with the grant, because something exists that many operators don't even know about: CAEs, Energy Savings Certificates.

It works like this: you swap old kit for efficient kit, that saving is certified, and energy companies buy the certificate, they're legally obliged to. Each kWh you stop using a year is worth today between 0,09 y 0,10€.

Sounds like a two-for-one. But here comes the fine print, and I'd rather tell you myself:

The draft Royal Decree says these grants "will not be compatible with other subsidies, aid, income or resources in force for the same eligible costs."

Translation: if the aid covers 100% of the invoice, also claiming the CAE on that same invoice is slippery ground. And CAE rules will ask you to justify the "incentive effect" of the certificate, hard to argue when you haven't put in a euro.

So where does the CAE still play? In three places:

1. On what you pay. If your renewal is €18,000 and the aid covers €11,000, the other €7,000 is your investment and the CAE doesn't compete with anything there.
2. On what the aid doesn't cover. LED lighting, heat pumps, cold-room insulation, compressor replacement. None of that is in this plan and all of it generates CAEs.
3. As a plan B if you arrive late. Which is what will happen to most people. If the budget runs out, the CAE is still there on the whole invoice.

Bar fridge cabinet, fifteen years old, the kind that kicks in every two minutes:

• Uses today: about 3,600 kWh a year
• A new efficient one: about 1,400 kWh
• Saving: 2,200 kWh a year

Our own estimate from typical commercial fridge-cabinet consumption.

The three calculations:

Electricity bill. 2,200 kWh × €0.22/kWh = €480 less every year. This is the real money, because it repeats every year.

The grant. Cabinet, installation and waste disposal: about €4,500. Add a dishwasher and the technical report and you land at €9,500, within the cap. Grant: up to that €9,500.

The CAE. 2,200 kWh × €0.095 = €210, one-off. But remember: if the grant covered 100%, you don't claim this on that invoice.

So the headline isn't "they give you the fridge free and pay you on top." It's: they can give you the fridge free and from then on you save €480 a year that used to disappear without you seeing it anywhere.

1. Identify which piece of kit costs you most. Not the oldest: the one that uses most energy. It's usually cold storage, not the cook line.
2. Get two quotes now, with energy labels and installation broken out.
3. Find a qualified technician for the energy-savings report. This is what takes time.
4. Have the tax census certificate and the de minimis certificate ready (if you have received other de minimis aid in three years, watch the cap).
5. Look at your cash from now to December.
6. On 5 August at 10:00, submit. Not at 12.

The Ministry note talks about aid "of between 5.000 y 11.000 euros". The draft Royal Decree circulating among firms sets a minimum investment of €2,000. Not the same thing, and until the text is in the BOE you won't know if a €3,000 investment leaves you out.

Same for the exact equipment list and minimum efficiency requirements. All of this comes from the official note and the draft decree: the text that counts is the BOE's.