The market for funding consulting is unregulated. Anyone may call themselves a consultant, and the offers differ less in price than in how they work. For you as a company that means you are not choosing between good and bad providers first, but between provider types with very different strengths.
This post sorts out the four types you will meet around the Forschungszulage. Without names, because this isn't about individual firms but about which model fits your situation.
| Provider type | Strength | Typical limit | Fits when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tax advisor | Tax assessment, figures, payroll data | Rarely routine on the technical certificate | The firm demonstrably supports BSFZ applications |
| Funding consultancy | Overview across many programmes | Application often in funding language, not engineering language | You are weighing several programmes in parallel |
| FZulG specialist | Routine in review practice and cost logic | No overview of other funding | The Forschungszulage is your main instrument |
| In-house | Full control, no fee to third parties | Ramp-up and your engineers' time | One clearly defined project and funding routine exist |
One thing applies to all four: the route to the Forschungszulage has two stages. First, the certification body (BSFZ) checks whether your project qualifies in principle. Then you apply to the tax office for the assessment. Most differences between provider types show up in the first stage.
Your tax advisor knows your figures better than any outsider: payroll, shareholder structure, linked enterprises, the balance sheet. And the second step is theirs anyway, because the assessment runs through the tax return. That isn't a formality but a legal division of labour: funding consulting is not tax advice under Section 1 StBerG, so an external funding consultant is not allowed to take that step at all.
The first stage is a different discipline. The BSFZ certificate is not a tax matter but a technical description of your project. What gets checked is whether your project is novel, creative, uncertain and systematic, and it gets checked by engineers and computer scientists, not by tax specialists.
Whether your firm can do this is not a question of quality but of case volume. In a firm with a broad client base, only a few companies do R&D, so such applications come up rarely. Ask specifically: how many BSFZ applications has the firm supported in the past twelve months, and who wrote the technical part there?
Important: the question is never "tax advisor or consultant". Even when an external provider prepares the certificate, your tax advisor remains responsible for the assessment. A good provider hands over the figures ready to use instead of bypassing them.
A classic funding consultancy thinks in programmes. It knows regional schemes, investment grants and EU funding, and it knows which instruments combine and which rule each other out. If you are weighing a grant before project start against tax-based funding afterwards, that is exactly where the value sits. Since the ZIM application freeze in July 2026, many companies have to make that call afresh anyway.
The friction sits elsewhere. In this market segment, applications are frequently written by funding officers, that is, people with a business or funding-policy background. For a grant programme with an expert committee, that is exactly right. With the Forschungszulage, however, engineers sit on the other side. An application describing market goals and customer benefits instead of technical target values and open questions triggers follow-up queries there.
In practice the consequence is almost always the same: your CTO either gets a template to fill in or has to proofread and correct the finished text. Which puts the workload back on the very person you wanted to protect.
A provider who does nothing but Forschungszulage sees the same procedure hundreds of times. That produces knowledge you cannot read up on: how the certification bodies interpret their review practice, which formulations reliably trigger queries, where the tax office later cuts, and how cost items are cleanly delineated, from contract research to fixed assets and corporate groups.
That is usually where the amount is decided. The difference between applications is rarely yes or no, it's the funding amount: are all eligible projects recognised? Are employees fully allocated by share? Will the documentation still hold up in a tax audit years later?
The limit of this type is the flip side of specialisation: there is no all-round view. If you also need a grant for a pilot plant or want to set up a multi-year funding strategy, you won't get advice on that here. Some companies solve this by combining both: a funding consultancy for the strategy, a specialist for the annual Forschungszulage application.
Strictly speaking you always apply yourself. Only the eligible entity, meaning your company, may apply for the BSFZ certificate. External parties prepare, draft and calculate, but you remain the applicant. So the real question isn't "self or not", it's how much preparation you buy in.
Doing it yourself is a serious option when three things come together: a clearly defined project, someone on the team with funding routine, and a recurring case. The second application for the same project a year later is far less work than the first, because structure, cost logic and time tracking already exist.
What it costs is rarely money, it's time in the wrong places:
The biggest risk here isn't rejection. A negative BSFZ decision is not an endpoint, you can improve and refile, and if it still goes wrong, you can file an objection with the BSFZ. The quiet case is more expensive: the application goes through, but with a fraction of the possible assessment base, because two out of five projects were never recognised as eligible.
Regardless of provider type, there are three models on the market, and each sets a different incentive:
However, "success-based" is not a protected term. So ask what counts as success: the BSFZ certificate or the money actually arriving. And whether there are setup fees, minimum fees or caps. How the models compare in numbers is covered in detail in What does Forschungszulage consulting cost?.
| Your situation | Obvious route |
|---|---|
| One single, clearly defined project, team with funding routine | In-house, tax advisor for the assessment |
| Ongoing development, several projects, scarce CTO time | Specialist |
| Grants, regional programmes and Forschungszulage all in play | Funding consultancy, possibly plus a specialist |
| First application, high uncertainty whether anything qualifies at all | Provider with a success-based model and an honest pre-check |
| Already rejected, or surprisingly little funding granted | Second opinion from a specialist |
| Tax advisor demonstrably supports BSFZ applications regularly | Everything from one source at the firm |
Whichever route you choose, these four questions separate good providers from expensive mistakes:
Zeitmaker is a specialist, with everything point 3 describes: we do nothing but Forschungszulage, we run the interviews with your team instead of sending questionnaires, and we draft the technical part ourselves, in four calls under five hours of your time. We don't advise on other funding programmes, and the assessment at the tax office stays with your tax advisor, who receives the figures from us ready to use. How that works in practice is on our page: specialized Forschungszulage consulting.
If you are unsure which type fits your situation: in a first call we'll also tell you when a different route is the better one for you.
The second step, yes. The first one, rarely. The assessment at the tax office runs through your tax return and therefore through your tax advisor. The BSFZ certificate that comes first is not a tax matter but a technical one: engineers and computer scientists check whether your project is novel, creative, uncertain and systematic. Whether your firm can handle that simply depends on how many such applications it supports per year. Ask directly.
You can do it yourself, and formally you always apply yourself anyway: only the eligible entity may apply for the BSFZ certificate, external support merely prepares the case. So the question isn't whether, but how much preparation you buy in. Doing it yourself makes most sense with one clearly defined project, someone on the team who knows funding procedures, and the time to spare.
Breadth. A classic funding consultancy covers many programmes, from regional schemes to grants and EU funding, and can weigh combinations and deadlines against each other. A specialist knows only one act, but knows its review practice in detail. If the Forschungszulage is your only instrument, you pay for breadth you don't use. If you need a funding strategy across several programmes, it's the other way around.
It aligns incentives well: someone who only earns on success will tell you honestly when an application isn't worth it, and has an interest in the maximum justifiable funding amount. But the term isn't protected. Ask what counts as success (the BSFZ certificate or the money actually arriving), whether there are minimum fees or setup charges, and what happens to the work already done if the application is rejected.
In principle yes, because the application belongs to your company, not to the consultant. Still, check the contract for who owns the documents produced, whether fee claims for already filed projects continue, and how long you are tied in. A rejection is no reason to panic either: with the BSFZ you can improve and refile.
By promises nobody can keep. No one can guarantee you a certificate, and no one can name an exact funding amount upfront. Be sceptical if you receive a long questionnaire to fill in yourself after signing, if nobody with a technical background works on the application, or if references only exist anonymously.
That's the decisive question for every provider type, and the answers differ a lot. Some models hand you templates your team fills in, others run interviews and draft a proposal from them. The difference hits your CTO's time directly, and it determines how technically concrete the application reads for the reviewers.
Drop us a line about what's on your mind — we'll get back to you personally and without obligation.
A practical guide to switching your Forschungszulage consultant: the right timing, what to check in your existing contract, which documents to request, and what happens to a pending BSFZ application.
Hourly fees, fixed price or success commission: which model carries which risk, what a commission actually refers to, and when it falls due.
The German cabinet has approved the draft Annual Tax Act 2026. For the Forschungszulage it contains a higher funding cap per project and more legal certainty on deadlines.
As of 7 July 2026, the BMWE is no longer accepting new ZIM applications. What the freeze means, who is affected and why the Forschungszulage is now the better baseline funding.
