EU AI Act Article 62: Free Support SMEs Can Claim

People almost always discuss the EU AI Act as a cost: obligations, documentation, fees. Article 62 runs the other way. It obliges Member States and the EU AI Office to give small teams concrete support in meeting the Act. Most SMEs and start-ups have never read it, so they never claim what it offers.

This guide sets out exactly what Article 62 makes available to small operators, and the route to access each measure.

What you need before starting

• An SME or start-up (and, following the 2026 Digital Omnibus amendments, in several respects a small mid-cap) with a registered office or a branch in the Union.
• A rough idea of whether any of your AI use is high-risk. The support is most valuable if you head toward conformity obligations. The Annex III test is the fastest way to check.
• Nothing else. None of the Article 62 measures require a lawyer or a paid intermediary to access.

What Article 62 actually gives you

Article 62 places duties on Member States (paragraph 1), on the way authorities set fees (paragraph 2), and on the AI Office (paragraph 3). Read together, they form a support package aimed squarely at small operators.

Priority access to a regulatory sandbox

Under Article 62(1)(a), Member States must give SMEs and start-ups priority access to their AI regulatory sandboxes. A sandbox is a supervised environment where you can develop and test an AI system with the regulator alongside you.

Article 57 requires each Member State to have at least one national sandbox operational by 2 August 2027. That date was originally 2 August 2026. The 2026 Digital Omnibus amendment pushed it back by a year. Inside the sandbox, competent authorities provide guidance, supervision, and support to help you identify risks and test mitigations.

On exit you receive written proof of the activities carried out and an exit report. Market-surveillance authorities and notified bodies must take that report positively into account, which can speed up a later conformity assessment.

Priority access does not mean exclusive access. The Act is explicit that prioritizing SMEs must not shut out other eligible operators.

Free training and a direct line for questions

Article 62(1)(b) requires Member States to run awareness-raising and training activities on applying the Act, tailored to the needs of SMEs, start-ups and deployers. This is not generic outreach. It must be shaped to small-operator realities.

Article 62(1)(c) is the measure small teams most often need and least often use. Member States must operate dedicated channels to give advice and answer queries, a route to ask your national authority a direct question rather than guess. Start by finding your national competent authority through the EU AI Act policy hub.

Reduced conformity-assessment fees

If your AI system is high-risk and needs third-party conformity assessment, Article 62(2) requires authorities to set fees with SME interests in mind, reduced proportionately to your size, market size, and other relevant indicators.

This does not make assessment free, but it is a statutory instruction that small providers must not pay the same absolute fee as a multinational. Raise it explicitly when you engage a notified body.

The AI Office’s free templates and information platform

Article 62(3) tasks the EU AI Office with practical, centrally-produced help: standardized templates for complying with the Act, a single information platform that provides easy-to-use information for all operators across the EU, and awareness campaigns about obligations.

For a small team, the templates and the single platform are the fastest wins: free, reusable, and authoritative. Bookmark the AI Act Service Desk, the Commission’s official document and help hub, as your starting point.

What changed for small mid-caps in 2026

The Digital Omnibus on AI is now law: Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, published in the Official Journal on 24 July 2026 and in force since 27 July 2026. It extended several SME accommodations to small mid-caps (SMCs), notably the simplified technical documentation form under Article 11(1), the proportionality rule for quality management systems under Article 17(2), and the more favorable fine calculation under Article 99.

If you sit just above the SME threshold, you are no longer automatically outside these simplifications.

Note that the simplified documentation regime lives in Article 11(1), not Article 62. It lets SMEs, start-ups, and SMCs supply the Annex IV elements on a simplified form that the Commission must produce and that notified bodies must accept.

What you can do now

You can stop treating the Act as purely a burden and start claiming the support it mandates. Identify your national competent authority and its advice channel. Check whether your national sandbox is live yet. Pull the AI Office templates rather than build compliance documents from scratch.

If any of your AI use heads toward high-risk classification, plan around the sandbox route and the reduced-fee provision early. Both are far easier to use before you reach a compliance deadline, not during one.

Related reading on The Science Talk

This guide pairs with EU Just Solved Your AI Compliance Problem: Inside the JRC Scientific Research Report, a look at another strand of official EU support for organizations that navigate AI compliance.

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