The Union Budget 2026 treats MSMEs less as recipients of schemes and more as participants in an operating system that determines costs, risk, and scale. The focus is not headline generosity but friction reduction—capital access, compliance time, payment certainty, logistics, and local infrastructure.

This approach mirrors the findings of the EGROW–ASSOCHAM study MSMEs Facing Challenges in Doing Business (August 2024), which identified four recurring constraints: access to finance, regulatory compliance, approvals, and payment delays. For proprietorships and micro firms, compliance costs were not marginal overheads but material business expenses. The Budget’s interventions track these pain points closely.

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