Start-up grants 2026

Financial details

• Each grant is worth €9,000.
• An discretionary additional sum of €200 per month may be awarded for:
  • single parents who, at the time of application and for the period covered by the grant, are not living with a partner (married, cohabiting, in a civil partnership) and will be receiving child benefit for at least one child during this period
  • those who, at the time of the application and for the period covered by the grant, will be receiving enhanced child benefit for a child with a disability for at least one child

Applicants to whom both of these apply will receive additional an grant of €400 per month.

• The grant applies to the year 2026.

Eligibility

• Applications will be considered from professional freelance artists who are Austrian citizens or who have their permanent residence in Austria at the time of application and during the period covered by the grant, and who graduated no more than five years ago (calculated from the submission deadline), regardless of their age. Artists who did not attend a university or university of applied sciences must be under the age of 35 (date of birth after 31 December 1990).

• Exceptions to these stipulations can be made only if sufficient explanation and evidence is provided. Such expections could be made if e.g. the applicant could not begin their career earlier due to starting a family, raising children, or serious illness. The maximum period of postponement is five years.
• Those not eligible for the grant include:
  • Persons enrolled at a university or university of applied sciences at the time of application
  • Persons who have alread received a BMWKMS grant (of any kind) or will receive another  BMWKMS grant in 2026.

Requirements

• Applications must be complete and submitted on time; the application can only be submitted in one category.

• The scholarship requires work on projects that must be included with the application as a concept. Projects that have already been completed at the time of application, projects that are predominantly commercial or educationally oriented, projects by laypeople and amateurs, projects within the framework of training and study programmes, and projects with primarily socio-cultural concerns will not be accepted.

• A further condition is that initial artistic projects must have already been implemented:
  
  • Visual arts, photography and media art: at least two exhibitions
  • Film: published film works
  • Literature: Publications in literary journals, anthologies, etc.
  • Music and performing arts: at least two publicly performed productions
• Projects for which funding has already been applied for at the BMWKMS cannot be considered.

Application

Applications should be made Online.