Economy, Tax, Economic Promotion and Tourism

Incentives for recruiting unemployed individuals with particular difficulties in accessing the labour market. This year’s edition subsidises the hiring of young unemployed people and research staff. Subsidy amounts vary according to the group and the type of contract, with a particular emphasis on encouraging the incorporation of women in different profiles. A total of two million euros has been earmarked for the programme.

Period: April 2024

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New edition of the specific call under the Barcelona City Council’s subsidies programme for strengthening and reviving the social and solidarity economy (SSE) and developing projects that implement the 2030 BCN SSE Strategy. It will subsidise up to a maximum of 80% of the total cost of each project. The initial estimated budget for the subsidies is €935.000.

Period: from April 2024

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Call for grants for revitalization of the lo- cal economy. They are financed projects that promote employment in neighbourhoods, entrepreneurship and the social economy and solidarity, among others. Highlights the method of revitalizing empty premises on the ground floor.

Period: June 2024

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To boost the presence of establishments in the digital environment, Barcelona is allocating half a million euros towards funding projects that invest in digital marketing, websites, online shops and digital signage, among other things.

Period: May 2024

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Collaboration agreement between Barcelona City Council and the Cooperative COOP57 SCCL, aimed at businesses and organisations in the SSE to facilitate funding for new projects and new lines of activity for both new and existing companies.

Period: In 2024

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Barcelona City Council and the Finances Ètiques Foundation maintain a collaboration agreement to strengthen the equity of social and solidarity economy companies in the municipality. The fund allows for temporary disbursements into the share capital of social companies, or alternatively, it invests through equity loans for a temporary period, setting growth and social impact objectives. Du- ring the investment period, the Foundation also provides strategic support.

Period: In 2024

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Find all the resources available in the city such as grants, training, advice, technological tools, and more for boosting digital skills and strengthening digitalisation in all areas more accessible to the public.

Period: Permanent

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The measure is aimed at non-profit associations, federations, confederations, and business associations linked to the visitor economy for the region of Destination Barcelona as a whole. It is part of the Sustainable Tourism Plan in destinations funded by the Next Generation EU funds to accelerate strategic innovation projects aimed at driving the transformation and digitalisation of the city of Barcelona.

Period: In 2024

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Barcelona City Council, in collaboration with the La Caixa Foundation, spearheads a twice-yearly grant programme for research and innovation projects aimed at addressing the challenges facing the city of Barcelona. This initiative aims to promote collaboration among research centres, third-sector organisations and the city’s economic fabric to develop research in areas such as community health, city digitalisation, ageing, quality of life and the climate emergency.

Period: In 2024

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Business one-stop-shop for enabling economic activity in the district. Located in the MediaTIC building, the office offers information for carrying out a business activity in the 22@ district. Preliminary use-plan reports, activity-starting and ending statements, licence transfers and applications for occupying public roads and squares can be processed there.

Period: In 2024

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Online self-diagnosis and training tools for social and solidarity economy (SSE) organisations. A series of resources are at their disposal to help with promoting their digitalisation. DigitESSt is a tool which enables SSE organisations to diagnose the state of their digitalisation. DigiTeca, for its part, is an open and free online training environment for improving the digitalisation of organisations. The training programme consists of eight modules: technology; organisation; feminism; networking; sustainable food; funding; sustainability; marking and communication.

Period: In 2024

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The observatory is regarded as an ordered knowledge platform, with data for monitoring the progress of ground-floor premises and activities as well as identifying opportunities. It also contains the main and supplementary indicators of interest to the various groups (internal, commercial sector and entrepreneurs) and which inspire the development of initiatives for improving the sustainability of active premises and occupation of vacant premises. The functions of this observatory are to quantify and openly share the available knowledge on ground-floor activities and premises, monitor the progress and changes that occur and inspire new strategies.

Period: In 2024

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Urban economic promotion areas (APEU) are created to promote and modernise urban areas with an action plan adapted to general-interest purposes. The goal is to improve the quality of the urban environment, consolidate the compact, unified and environmentally efficient city model, as well as increase business competitiveness. Barcelona City Council has launched training and support sessions for shopping hubs and players involved from the economic sector. It also offers technical and legal advice to organisations interested in continuing to work on developing their APEU project.

Period: In 2024

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Events that provide a space for direct contact between enterprises with job offers and job candidates, with participatory dynamics and brief interviews. They are tailor-made for enterprises and also specifically for business sectors.

Period: In 2024

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Guidance service aimed at self-employed workers, social and solidarity economy enterprises, businesses and associations on issues relating to incorporations, funding, talent management, transfers, internationalisation and digital transformation.

Period: In 2024

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Project to revive local trade with contributions from young talent in the creative industries. Various training centres in creative disciplines come into contact with commercial hubs. Groups of students diagnose issues and propose creative initiatives to revive small businesses. This project enables small retailers to learn more about strategies and creative thinking, and jobs for design professionals may subsequently be created.

Term: until December 2024

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Barcelona Activa’s entrepreneurship services accompany and support entrepreneurs wishing to start a business project throughout the entire process, enabling them to turn an idea into a feasible enterprise.

Period: In 2024

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Specialised, personal service for providing information to and supporting SSE enter- prises and organisations, from how to start a project to how to improve it and obtain funding. Coordinated with the ecosystem’s services, operators and players, this service identifies opportunities and detects difficulties, in addition to offering tools and expert support in specific areas.

Period: In 2024

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This service promotes applications of the subcontracting clause with social and solidarity economy (SSE) enterprises and the social reserve that Barcelona City Council promotes, reaching €10 million a year and aimed at SSE enterprises (more specifically, special work centres and insertion enterprises).

Period: In 2024

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This is a municipal facility specialising in responsible consumption and committed to people and the environment. With that goal in mind, it takes part in city events that promote responsible consumption and sustainable food, offers talks, activities and exhibitions, and puts a Responsible Consumption Information Point at the disposal of the general public.

Period: In 2024 (except August)

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Programmes for entrepreneurship include accompaniment and networking for the creation of enterprises and organisations aimed at certain groups of entrepreneurs (young people, older people and women) or sectors of activity (creative industries, food, sport, tourism or projects with a social impact).

Period: In 2024

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The Barcelona Citizen Science Office serves as a multidisciplinary platform for promoting citizen science and collective learning based on experience and best practices. The Office’s mission is to support citizen science conducted in Barcelona by advising, accompanying and promoting initiatives that wish to operate in the city and its metropolitan area. Additionally, it aims to foster closer ties between the public and research communities while enhancing connections with emerging civic and cultural organisations.

Period: In 2024

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The Cibernàrium offers training to improve digital tech skills and help meet the challenges that come with digitalisation. Its programme enables enterprises to cover their digital talent needs.

Period: In 2024

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Barcelona Activa offers training grouped by subject category and adapted to the needs of each person.

Period: In 2024

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The Barcelona Activa Virtual and face-to-face classroom has specific courses designed for SSE projects and organisations. These teach how to prepare yourself for setting up a business, improving your skills or strengthening SEE sector enterprises.

Period: In 2024

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Barcelona Activa offers over 50 free on- line courses to boost shops, bars and restaurants. The training teaches them how to improve management by incorporating digital transformation processes and helps them to use digital tools to make themselves known, boost sales and increase customer loyalty.

Period: In 2024

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This is a municipal facility specialising in responsible consumption and committed to people and the environment. With that goal in mind, it takes part in city events that promote responsible consumption and sustainable food, offers talks, activities and exhibitions, and puts a Responsible Consumption Information Point at the disposal of the general public.

Period: In 2024 (except August)

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Online self-diagnosis and training tools for social and solidarity economy (SSE) organisations. A series of resources are at their disposal to help with promoting their digitalisation. DigitESSt is a tool which enables SSE organisations to diagnose the state of their digitalisation. DigiTeca, for its part, is an open and free online training environment for improving the digitalisation of organisations. The training programme consists of eight modules: technology; organisation; feminism; networking; sustainable food; funding; sustainability; marking and communication.

Period: In 2024

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Programmes for entrepreneurship include accompaniment and networking for the creation of enterprises and organisations aimed at certain groups of entrepreneurs (young people, older people and women) or sectors of activity (creative industries, food, sport, tourism or projects with a social impact).

Period: In 2024

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Find all the resources available in the city such as grants, training, advice, technological tools, and more for boosting digital skills and strengthening digitalisation in all areas more accessible to the public.

Period: Permanent

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These two are benchmark events for entrepreneurial initiative and job seeking, and they are held together to foster talent and boost businesses. The city’s entrepreneurial and business ecosystem will be meeting institutions and professionals again in 2024.

Period: 23 and 24 October

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Barcelona City Council and Barcelona Activa take part in the main trade fairs held in the city, with their own space offering economic information on the city, advice for enterprises and investors, and networking activities, among other things. Spaces are provided at these fairs so that start-ups in the Barcelona Activa orbit and taking part in its accompaniment programmes can be introduced and create new business opportunities.

Period: In 2024

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This is a space for participation, public-private cooperation and joint action between city institutions and organisations working to transform the prevailing food system and make it healthier and more sustainable. Its goal is to give continuity to the pro- cess used for drafting the EASSB2030, promoting cooperation, action and coordination of projects to move towards a healthy, sustainable food model.

Period: In 2024

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The #ESSBCN2030 SSE strategy is an expression of the joint work and commitment of the SSE area and the SSE community to join forces and strengthen the SSE in the city. It became a city agreement in June 2021, creating a joint working space for participation and shared governance between the SSE area, co-led by the Catalan Social Economy Association (AESCAT) and Barcelona City Council, thereby enhancing and giving continuity to the participatory process underway, and contributing to the socio-economic development of the city and its residents.

Period: In 2024

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Agròpolis is a public community space for dialogue, work and action, between civil society, the economic fabric, universities and the municipal public authority, which have the common goal of collaborating to transform Barcelona’s food system through the values of food sovereignty and agroecology.

Period: In 2024

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Annual fair organised in a central part of Barcelona to promote responsible consumption and introduce the social and solidarity economy to the city. You will find various booths with social and solidarity economy (SSE) or responsible consumption enterprises, organisations and projects in Barcelona, offering a wide range of crafts, clothes and other textile accessories, culture, books, packaged food, cosmetics, toys and other small-gift products.

Registration: July/September. Fair held: December 2024

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Every year the City Council launches a campaign every year to position Barcelona as a city for quality local shops, markets, bars and restaurants, thanks to the professionalism of the people working there and the service they offer the public. The campaign is also intended to make these establishments aware that the professionalism of their teams is a key factor in Barcelona becoming a benchmark in this field.

Period: In 2024

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€260,000 is allocated to promote the following initiatives:

Green Commerce 
This has been deployed across the extensive network of municipal markets in the city (508 establishments affiliated as of November 2023), to promote local, organic, farm-to-table, and artisanal products, working collaboratively with Social and Solidarity Economy of Barcelona City Council, the FEMM (Federation of Municipal Markets), and the food guilds to execute the project. In 2024, the project will receive a new boost with new actions and targeted campaigns for each type of product. 

Zero Plastic 
Information and advisory actions aimed at reducing single-use plastic packaging. 

Cookery classrooms in the markets 
There are four permanent kitchens in the markets of Sants, Boqueria, Ninot, and Sant Antoni, and two mobile kitchens that support the project. During the 2022- 2023 school year, 4,600 children from 33 schools in the city attended the cookery classrooms. For the coming year, the expected attendance is of 8,500 children from 53 schools. 

And the educational projects, with a budget allocation of €51,000, offered support to 7,201 students from 204 schools in the previous school year (2022-23).

Period: In 2024

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The City Council offers different: for new-build properties and social housing, if this involves a large family and systems are installed for harnessing heat or electricity from the sun’s energy, during the three tax periods following the date of the installation’s legalisation.

Period: each rebate’s specific terms will have to be consulted

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The City Council offers different rebates on the tax for business activities.

Rebates for cooperatives
Cooperatives and cooperative unions, federations and confederations can request an IAE rebate provided they present documentary proof that they are registered in the Cooperatives register and meet the requirements set out in the Tax byelaw and Act 20/1990, of 19 December, on the tax system for cooperatives.

The rebate is for 95% of the amount of the tax levied.

Tax rebates for increased staff numbers
Natural or legal persons who pay municipal tax and have increased their staff by 10% or more are eligible for a rebate. The increase must have involved indefinite contracts and taken place during the tax period immediately prior to that in which the subsidy is requested.

It must be borne in mind that this increase in staff numbers must have occurred in their work centres in the Barcelona municipality.

Rate reduction for use of renewable energy

Rebates for natural and legal persons installing systems for harnessing heat or electricity from the sun’s energy, for three consecutive years as from the date of application for the installation’s legalisation or registration.

Period: specified for each rebate

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The City Council offers several rebates on the tax on mechanically powered vehicles. 

• Rebate on the tax on mechanically powered vehicles for owners of vehicles classed as zero emission or electric vehicles: Rebate on the tax on mechanically powered vehicles of any kind (except trailers) classed as zero emission vehicles according to the vehicle registry of the Directorate General of Traffic. 
• Rebate on the tax on mechanically powered vehicles for owners of ECO-classed vehicles that use petrol, with emissions of up to 120 g/km of CO2: Rebate on the tax on mechanically powered vehicles for owners of ECO-classified vehicles of any kind (except trailers) that use petrol, with emissions of up to 120 g/km of CO2, according to the vehicle registry of the Directorate General of Traffic. 
• Rebate on the tax on mechanically powered vehicles for owners of vintage vehicles: Rebate on the entire amount of the tax on mechanically powered vehicles for vehicles considered vintage, under the regulations for vintage vehicles.

Period: specified for each rebate

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Barcelona City Council offers several rebates on the construction, installation and works tax. Rebates on the construction, installation and works tax (ICIO) may be requested for work whose purpose is to construct buildings or put up installations declared to be of special municipal interest or usefulness, because of social, cultural, historical and artistic or work-promoting circumstances or because they incorporate systems for harnessing heat or electricity from solar energy.

Period: The period needs to be consulted in the corresponding tax byelaw

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