EU AI Act Article 62: The Support Measures for SMEs and Start-ups, Read in Full

You are a 35-person start-up building a high-risk AI system, and you have heard the EU AI Act "goes easy" on small companies. It does not. Article 62 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 gives you priority access to a regulatory sandbox, tailored training, a dedicated authority channel, and a smaller conformity-assessment bill — concessions on access and cost, not a carve-out from the obligations themselves. Your duties still flow from your role and your risk class, never from your headcount. This guide reads Article 62 measure by measure and pairs it with the two provisions that complete the picture.

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What Article 62 Is — and What It Is Not

Article 62 sits in Chapter VI of the Act, headed "Measures in Support of Innovation". It directs Member States and the AI Office towards concrete support for providers and deployers that are SMEs, including start-ups. Read the heading literally: this is innovation support, not an exemption regime.

The thesis to hold onto is simple. Article 62 is a set of access and cost concessions. It does not touch the substantive stack. Whether you must run a risk management system (Article 9), assemble Annex IV technical documentation, or complete conformity assessment (Article 43) is decided by your role — provider or deployer — and by the risk class of each system under Article 6 and Annex III. A 35-person provider of a high-risk system owes the same Chapter III, Section 2 requirements as a 5,000-person one. Article 62 changes what that work costs and how you are supported through it, never whether you must do it.

Note the scope of this guide too. Article 62 is the provision itself, not the wider "SME relief package" that gets discussed across the Act. We read the article line by line here rather than mapping enacted-versus-agreed status across every reform.

The trap is eligibility. "SME" is not a vibe; it is the established EU definition imported into the Act from Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC: fewer than 250 staff, and either annual turnover not exceeding €50 million or a balance-sheet total not exceeding €43 million. Start-ups are not defined separately — the Act pairs "SMEs, including start-ups" throughout. The linked- and partner-enterprise tests apply in full, so a company majority-owned by a large group may aggregate the group's figures and fall out of scope.

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The Support Measures Article 62 Directs

Article 62(1) directs four measures. None is automatic; each is an obligation placed on authorities and the AI Office to act, delivered through national programmes.

Priority access to AI regulatory sandboxes (subject to eligibility)

Article 62(1) gives SMEs and start-ups established in the Union priority access to the national AI regulatory sandboxes established under Article 57, provided they satisfy the eligibility conditions. A sandbox is a controlled environment for developing and testing a system under regulatory supervision before market entry — supervised runway, not an exemption from supervision. "Priority" means SMEs are favoured for finite slots, so apply early.

Tailored awareness-raising and training on the Act's application

Article 62(1) directs that specific awareness-raising and training activities on the application of the Act be organised, tailored to the needs of SMEs and start-ups. The intent is to lower the cost of understanding what the Act demands.

A dedicated channel to communicate with competent authorities

Where appropriate, a dedicated channel for communication with SMEs, start-ups, deployers and other innovators is to be established — to provide guidance and respond to queries about implementing the Regulation.

Involvement in the standardisation process

Article 62(1) directs that the participation of SMEs and other relevant stakeholders in the standardisation development process be facilitated. This matters because conformity with harmonised standards under Article 40 carries a presumption of conformity — having a voice in those standards is a genuine commercial lever.

The caveat: the precise form of each measure — which sandbox, which guidance channel — is designated at Member-State level. Check your national competent authority for specifics rather than assuming a uniform implementation across the Union.

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Proportionate Conformity-Assessment Fees

Article 62(2) directs that the specific interests and needs of SME providers, including start-ups, be taken into account when setting the fees for conformity assessment under Article 43 — reducing those fees proportionately to their size, the size of the market, and other relevant indicators.

Three limits keep this honest. First, it bites only where a system actually requires third-party assessment by a notified body. Many high-risk Annex III systems use the internal-control route under Annex VI and incur no notified-body fee at all, so there is nothing to reduce. Second, the reduction scales the fee to the company; it does not remove the underlying conformity-assessment obligation or change which assessment route applies under Article 43. Third, Member States and the AI Office set and reduce these fees, so the proportional figure is determined nationally — there is no single EU tariff to point to.

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Pairing Article 62 With Articles 11(1) and 99(6)

Article 62 is one leg of a three-part proportionality stack. Read it alongside the Article 11(1) simplified technical-documentation form and the Article 99(6) proportional penalty cap to see the full enacted relief for smaller companies.

Article 11(1) directs the Commission to establish a simplified technical-documentation form meeting the needs of SMEs and start-ups, condensing the Annex IV drafting effort without lowering the underlying Chapter III, Section 2 substance. As of June 2026 the enabling provision is in force but the template is not yet published.

Article 99(6) inverts the default "whichever is higher" rule: for SMEs and start-ups each administrative fine is set at the lower of the percentage or the fixed amount, and authorities must weigh the company's economic viability. Anchor the tiers exactly: Article 99(3) up to €35 million or 7% of total worldwide annual turnover for Article 5 prohibited practices; Article 99(4) up to €15 million or 3% for most high-risk and other obligation breaches; Article 99(5) up to €7.5 million or 1% for supplying incorrect, incomplete or misleading information to authorities. Article 99(6) takes the lower side of each.

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Worked Example: Applying Article 62 at a 35-Person Start-up

Norbruk Diagnostics is a 35-staff EU health-tech start-up with €4 million turnover, building an AI triage tool for ambulance dispatch. It is independently held, with no large-group owner, so it sits inside the Recommendation 2003/361/EC thresholds and the linked- and partner-enterprise tests do not knock it out. Every Article 62 measure is available to it.

Classify first. As a stand-alone Annex III point 5(d) emergency-dispatch and triage use case, the tool is high-risk and Norbruk is its provider. That classification — not the headcount — is what triggers the full Chapter III, Section 2 obligations. Article 62 then softens the path; it does not remove the obligations.

Walk the levers in order. Norbruk applies early for priority access to an Article 57 sandbox, because slots are finite and "priority" only favours, it does not guarantee. It uses the tailored awareness/training and the dedicated authority channel for implementation queries instead of paying external counsel for every question. Where notified-body assessment applies under Article 43, it requests proportionate Article 62(2) fees from its national authority.

Then it layers the paired measures: build the Annex IV file now, and condense it into the Article 11(1) simplified form once the template is published. The Article 99(6) lower-of cap is banked as a backstop, not a strategy — you do not plan around a fine.

Timeline caveat for the example: Norbruk plans its high-risk obligations against the statutory 2 August 2026 date for stand-alone Annex III. The Digital Omnibus deferral to 2 December 2027 is now adopted — the European Parliament approved it on 16 June 2026 and the Council formally adopted it on 29 June 2026, with entry into force on publication in the Official Journal, expected before 2 August 2026.

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How to Actually Use Article 62

Document your SME or start-up status against Recommendation 2003/361/EC — headcount, turnover or balance sheet, and ownership structure — so your entitlement to every Article 62 measure is defensible if a market surveillance authority questions it.

Identify your national competent authority and AI regulatory sandbox. Because the Regulation is directly applicable but authorities are designated nationally, the sandbox application route and the dedicated channel are member-state specific. Flag those specifics for local confirmation rather than assuming a uniform setup.

Apply for sandbox priority and proportionate fees early in development, not at the end. Both are pre-market tools that lose their value if requested after a system is already built.

Treat Article 62 as proportionality plumbing around obligations you still owe. It lowers cost and friction; it does not change your role, your risk class, or your substantive duties.

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How Confir helps

The work Article 62 makes cheaper still has to be done — the Annex IV technical file, the Article 9 risk management records, the conformity-assessment evidence. Confir's assessments work through the Chapter III, Section 2 requirements control by control, collect the evidence systematically, and generate the technical documentation pack as a structured output, so a small team produces an audit-defensible file without a large compliance function. The intake also fixes your role and risk class up front, which is what determines whether the Article 62 levers apply to you at all.

The engine is deterministic and rule-based — no model inference, no hallucination. The same intake produces the same scoping every time, which is what audit defensibility depends on.

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Frequently asked questions

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Related guides

• the full SME and start-up relief package mapped enacted-versus-agreed
• the simplified Annex IV documentation form for SMEs
• the Article 99 penalty tiers and the proportional cap
• what an AI regulatory sandbox is and how access works
• compliance software for SMEs