Hyper-amortisation and foreign machinery: the Made in EU rule is dropped

SUNDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER 2026

Decree-Law 38/2026 removed the European origin requirement on eligible goods: in two months companies booked 4.75 billion, 98% of it in machinery.

Hyper-amortisation and foreign machinery are no longer incompatible: the constraint reserving the incentive for goods produced in the European Union has been removed, and in the first two months companies have already booked 4.75 billion euro of investment. For anyone buying plant outside Europe the difference is substantial, because it changes the tax advantage of a non-EU supply.

Hyper-amortisation and foreign machinery: what changed

The 2026 budget law had introduced a geographical origin requirement: to access the incentive, capital goods had to be produced in the European Union or in a country of the European Economic Area. The constraint slowed the measure down, because many strategic technologies, from machine tools to components, are produced outside Europe.

Decree-Law 38 of 27 March 2026 removed that requirement. Eligible investments may now cover new tangible and intangible goods produced in the Union, in the European Economic Area or in third countries. The rule applies to all investments made from 1 January 2026, so it also covers companies that had already started purchasing in the early months of the year.

The figures for the first two months

The online portal run by the energy services operator for advance notifications under the New Transition 5.0 Plan opened on 12 June 2026. By 13 August the measure had collected almost 15,000 applications, both advance and confirmed notifications.

• Investment booked in two months: 4.75 billion euro
• Applications filed by 13 August 2026: almost 15,000
• Projects already confirmed with a deposit: 2.27 billion euro
• Share of tangible goods in the total booked: 98%
• Opening of the energy operator's online portal: 12 June 2026

Confirmation is not a formality. To confirm the advance notification a company must have paid the supplier a deposit of at least 20% of the investment: of the 4.75 billion notified, 2.27 have cleared that step, while the rest is still booked and may yet shrink.

98% is steel, not software

The composition of demand says more than any comment. Some 98% of booked investment concerns tangible goods for the digitalisation of production processes: machines, plant, components. Software and renewable self-generation plants remain a marginal share.

For software the reason lies in the chosen perimeter: only licences that qualify as capital assets are eligible, while subscription service fees are excluded. For photovoltaics, restrictions on eligible modules narrow the field further. The result is that the measure, in practice, finances the purchase of machinery.

What it means for those buying abroad

The combination of the origin constraint falling away and the concentration on tangible goods shifts the problem from tax to sourcing. Plant built in Asia or the United States now qualifies just as plant built in Germany does: choosing a supplier becomes an industrial and pricing decision again, not one dictated by an origin code.

What changes is the nature of the deposit. The 20% required to confirm the notification is not an ordinary commercial down payment: it is the act that locks in the incentive booking. Paying it to a supplier that then slips on delivery, or that cannot properly document the supply, means committing capital and tax position to an unverified counterparty.

A practical order of priority follows. First verify the supplier, then pay the deposit, not the other way round. It is worth asking in writing for the delivery date and the technical specifications that qualify the asset as eligible, checking that the supply documentation matches what was notified to the portal, and weighing transport times: machinery leaving Asia carries a lead time that adds to production time, and the completion window is not open-ended.

With La Merce, using hyper-amortisation on foreign machinery means vetting the supplier before paying that 20% deposit: factory checks, verification of technical specifications and consistency of supply documents are what separate a subsidised investment from a deposit committed to a counterparty that does not hold up.

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