As happened in Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe also allows the declaration of costs associated with SME Owners who don’t receive a salary. Although the calculation of SME Owner costs not receiving salary follows the same steps as in Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe brings some minor differences regarding its predecessor.

The main change comes from the shift in the unit used for the calculation: the base unit in Horizon 2020 for personnel cost were hours whereas in Horizon Europe we will be focusing on days. Therefore, in the case of SME Owners, we’ll also be talking about a fixed daily rate instead of an hourly rate.

The costs must be calculated, for the SME owner, in accordance with the methodology set out in Decision C(2020) 7115 and Annex 2a:

Amount per unit (daily rate) = {{EUR 5 080 /18 days = 282,22} multiplied by {country-specific correction coefficient of the country where the beneficiary is established}}

The country-specific correction coefficient is the one for HE MSCA actions (see Horizon Europe Work Programme, section Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions in force at the time of the call.).

The current applicable country-specific correction coefficients are the following:

When declaring the costs on the portal, the calculation itself is automated: beneficiaries must only indicate the number of days worked on the action and the costs are then automatically calculated by the IT system as follows: amount per unit (daily rate) x number of days worked on the action.

To keep in mind when calculating SME Owner costs:

1. Dedication to the project must be supported by project timesheets.
2. Should you be keeping track of the dedication in hours, this number should be later translated into days, dividing the total number of hours by 8. The resulting number should be rounded up or down to the nearest half-day.
3. The maximum number of days an SME Owner can charge to a project in one year is of 215.