FAQs on the Congress Fund for Sustainable Meetings

The fund is intended to support events in Berlin that are aimed exclusively at a specialist audience, such as congresses, conferences, seminars and training courses. The events must meet specific sustainability criteria. Additional funding may be granted for the organisation of decentralised or hybrid events. An event is considered to be decentralised if it takes place at several locations in Berlin that have been booked for a fee at the same time and where the participants are connected to each other using online platforms. Hybrid events take place both offline in Berlin and simultaneously online for a specialist audience.

- Trade fairs, exhibitions and similar formats, even if they are aimed exclusively at a specialist audience and/or are linked to a congress that is eligible for funding 

- Events aimed at private individuals or for leisure or recreational purposes 

- Events that the applicants themselves or third parties are legally obliged to hold 

- Party-political events 

- Events that began before the application was submitted 

The basic funding for sustainable meetings is 25 euros per participant/day and an additional 10 euros per participant/day for hybrid or decentralised events. 

The number of participants actually present at the event is decisive for calculating the amount of funding. This also applies to hybrid events, where the online participants are not taken into account. 

The maximum funding amount per event is 99,950 euros. 

Examples: 

A two-day congress without an online offering with 121 participants on the first day and 95 participants (in the example: TN) on the second day can receive the following funding: 

121 TN x 25 EUR + 95 TN x 25 EUR = 5,400 EUR 

If the same congress is offered as a hybrid event, the calculation changes: 

121 participants x 35 EUR + 95 participants x 35 EUR = 7,560 EUR 

Events that fulfil the following requirements are eligible for basic funding for sustainable meetings: 

The event takes place in a booked event venue in the state of Berlin. The booking of the venue must either be subject to a fee or it is offered as part of a catering contract or the rental of a room contingent. 

The event has at least 50 participants present on one day. 

The event lasts at least one day. Grants are only awarded for days on which the event duration of the project-related content is at least four hours net (without breaks). 

The event achieves at least 300 points in at least four categories of the Sustainable Event Scorecard. 

For hybrid events, it must be ensured that participants can follow the event online via audiovisual live media for the entire duration of the event (without breaks). Online participants must be given the opportunity to participate in the event in a similar way to those who attend in person, by asking questions or making contributions (for example, a moderated chat function or the option to join in via video would be conceivable). For an event lasting several days, the surcharge for a hybrid event will only be granted for the days on which it takes place both in person and interactively online.

Only the number of in-person participants (specialist audience) is counted; excluding speakers, employees, service staff, etc. 

The funding programme is aimed at organisations (e.g. companies, associations, public institutions) and self-employed or freelance professionals who intend to hold an event in Berlin. The organiser is considered to be the person who bears the financial and entrepreneurial risk of the event, who has the economic, organisational and legal responsibility and who organises the event on their own account. Event locations can therefore not apply for funding in their capacity as landlords. 

An important prerequisite for being an applicant is to have a registered office, place of business or branch in the Federal Republic of Germany. 

A professional audience in the sense of the Congress Fund funding programme is deemed to be present in cases where the participants in the event are attending solely for professional reasons. For example, because they are registering on behalf of their employer or for research purposes, as in the case of a scientific congress. Accordingly, funding is provided for congresses, conferences, seminars or training courses, for example. Professional motivation can also be assumed if the event serves to further the training of people in the context of an honorary post. This can be assumed, for example, if a qualification certificate required for the performance of voluntary activities is to be obtained by attending the event. 

Yes, registered associations and foundations can be recipients of funding from the Congress Fund.

No, the Congress Fund for Sustainable Meetings can only be used to support events that have not yet begun to be prepared. The commencement of a project is generally considered to be the conclusion of a supply or service contract that is to be attributed to the execution. This includes, for example, rental contracts for the event premises, service or rental contracts for technology, catering contracts or contracts for the delivery of advertising materials for the event. 

This does not include the conclusion of a contract with an event agency for the purpose of designing, organising and implementing an event. It also does not include the conclusion of contracts that are attributable to the organiser's income, such as sponsorship contracts. 

After the funding application has been submitted, Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB) will send a confirmation of receipt. This will include authorisation to start the project. Until a funding decision has been received, the applicant will be acting at their own financial risk. 

To apply for funding, the forms must be completed and uploaded to the IBB customer portal. In addition, the documents listed at the end of the application must be uploaded. The funding application and its attachments must be submitted digitally to the approval body via the IBB customer portal. It is not necessary to send printed and signed copies without being asked to do so. 

The application must be submitted by a person authorised to represent the company. 

Yes. An organiser may submit several funding applications in principle. However, only one funding application may be submitted per event. It is possible, however, to submit funding applications for different events. 

The programme should be designed in such a way that it lasts at least four net hours per funded day. A supporting programme is not eligible for funding. 

In addition, corresponding lists of participants must be prepared and maintained. You will receive information on how to handle the data collected for the information of your participants with your funding decision. 

The lists must be kept as follows: 

-         List of participants with first and last names/institution/city/country, 

-        signed by the participants who were actually present on each day of the event, or 

-        generated by a digital registration system that ensures daily registration at the event location  

as a means of attendance control and signed by the management of the applicant to confirm its accuracy. 

The fulfilment of the selected sustainability criteria and the submission of the corresponding evidence are a prerequisite for the payment request. Cash payment receipts are not accepted as evidence for reasons of money laundering prevention. 

In all public relations measures in connection with the funded project, a written reference to the financial participation of the Senate Department for Economics, Technology and Research 

and the inclusion of the Senate Department's logo – which can be found under Downloads – must be made. Further information can be found in the funding guidelines. 

All employees (including those who work outside the project) will be paid at least the current minimum wage of the state of Berlin (§ 9 LMiLoG Bln), as long as and to the extent that they receive funding from the state of Berlin. In the case of the congress fund, this applies to the duration of your event. The current regulation can be viewed on the website of the state of Berlin. 

The event must have taken place by 31 December 2025. Applications can be completed and uploaded via the IBB customer portal.

The funding will be paid out after a successful review of the payment request. The submission must be made no later than three months after the event has taken place.

The following documents must be submitted: 

- List of participants with first and last names/institution/city/country, signed by the actual participants on each day of the event or generated from a digital registration system that ensures daily registration at the event location for the purpose of attendance control and signed by the management of the applicant to confirm its accuracy 

- Numerical proof in the form of a confirmation of use (including information on the total costs, the eligible costs (see 5.3 Eligible expenses of the funding guidelines), the income and a confirmation that the grant was used exclusively to fulfil the purpose of the grant as specified in the approval notice, that the funds were used economically and sparingly and that the information matches the books and receipts) 

- Invoice for the booked event venue in the state of Berlin and the corresponding payment receipt (bank statement), the final event programme, which shows the content (including speakers, if applicable) and the net duration of the event (without breaks) in chronological order 

- Information on the sustainability criteria actually met (Sustainable Event Scorecard) and corresponding evidence numerically marked using the scorecard 

- If applicable, proof that the event was a hybrid event (invoice from a service provider for the provision of the stream or other proof with comparable significance regarding the hybridity of the event and the corresponding payment receipt (bank statement) 

- If additional funding for decentralised meetings was applied for: short concept, rental contracts for the individual event venues and invoices for the technology. 

The Sustainable Event Scorecard is used as the basis for evaluating the sustainability of the event or event management. It covers various sustainability topics from 13 fields of action, including social and environmental impacts and the event's carbon footprint, climate protection, diversity, regionality and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. 

To receive funding from the "Congress Fund for Sustainable Meetings", at least 300 of the 930 possible points must be achieved in at least four of the 13 fields of action of the Sustainable Event Scorecard. 

The Federal Statistical Office has developed a catalogue of sectors and classified them with a code for the purpose of statistical data collection. This sector code must be entered in two places when applying for the Berlin Congress Fund: 

1.    The applicant organisation must state which sector it belongs to. 

2.    In order to better understand which events are being funded, the sector to which the target group of the event being applied for belongs must be stated. 

You can find the classification of economic sectors at https://www.destatis.de/DE/Methoden/Klassifikationen/Gueter-Wirtschaftsklassifikationen/klassifikation-wz-2008.html 

The first five digits of the code must be entered. 

The subsidy in the funding programme Congress Fund for Sustainable Meetings provides successful applicants with a grant from the state of Berlin. All legal entities that receive or would like to receive grants from the state must be registered in the transparency database to increase the clarity of the information and thus increase transparency. Further information and the option to register can be found here: 

https://www.berlin.de/buergeraktiv/informieren/transparenz/