You can receive the subsidy if you
- receive unemployment benefit II or are entitled to it
- want to become professionally self-employed (start-up),
- want to expand a previously marginal self-employed activity into your main occupation, or
- are already self-employed on a full-time basis.
The aim is to enable you to support yourself permanently within a reasonable period of time and no longer require unemployment benefit II (Hartz IV).
Financial support for the purchase of material goods
If you want to purchase material goods that you need for your work, you can get a loan or a grant for this from your job center. Material goods can be, for example:
- Computers,
- software,
- telephone,
- office furniture,
- Marketing measures (for example, creation of a homepage)
- Vehicles, machinery, equipment, tools
- Deposit for commercial premises
- Initial equipment and operationally necessary stocking up of your material, goods or spare parts warehouse.
No ongoing operating costs will be covered, such as
- Wages and personnel costs,
- rent,
- telephone bills or
- maintenance costs.
Financial support for the purchase of material goods is usually provided in the form of a loan. In individual cases, grants are possible up to an amount of EUR 5,000, loans even beyond that. A combination of both is possible. Loans and grants are paid out in monthly installments or as a total amount, depending on the purpose. You must repay the loan later, but not the grant.
You must apply for the Jobcenter subsidy before you make the purchase. It is not possible to receive a loan or grant for material goods that have already been purchased.
Free advice and training for the self-employed
If you are already self-employed on a full-time basis, you can also receive support through
- Consultations that help you to maintain or reorient your self-employed activity (tax and legal consultations, however, are not subsidized)
- Training courses that provide you with entrepreneurial knowledge, for example in the areas of marketing, accounting, acquisition or project management.
Both are free of charge for you. Your job center will commission your local Chamber of Industry and Commerce or Chamber of Crafts, private training providers, innovation, technology or start-up centers, for example.
Your integration specialist will check and decide which of the aforementioned services you can receive. This also applies to the amount of a loan or grant. This means that you have no legal claim to it.