One-liner: the municipal instrument and governance structure that turns the city of València into a living lab — you bring the idea, the city gives you real infrastructure to test it, with zero bureaucracy and no cost. "You bring the idea, Valencia offers the city." This page covers the institutional/regulatory profile; for the full step-by-step application process, eligibility articles, and risk/benefit-sharing terms, see the fully enriched program page: Valencia Urban Sandbox (Program).
What a founder gets
- Access to real city infrastructure — 100+ listed "urban resources" (spaces, infrastructure, events) for prototyping and real-world testing; founders can also propose new resources.
- No administrative barriers, no cost to participate; a facilitator person plus municipal technical staff assigned to each test.
- Quadruple-helix governance — private sector, academia, public institutions, and citizens co-govern the pilots.
- Support toward employment, talent attraction, and ecosystem building — framed as part of the city's broader innovation-economy strategy, not just a testing permit.
- See Valencia Urban Sandbox (Program) for the concrete application steps, duration rules (up to 5+5 years), and the 0.5–5% benefit-sharing mechanism.
Who it's for
- Any phase, any sector — technology, humanities, circular economy, smart city, digital public services, urban regeneration. No sector restrictions in principle, though priority themes mirror VIC's eight verticals.
- Especially powerful for Idea Stage (phase) founders who need real-world proof cheaply — but open to all stages through growth/scale (see program page eligibility: phase validation → growth).
- Requirement: the project must show potential economic, social, or environmental impact and be in an advanced enough state for real-world validation.
How to engage
- Always open — no fixed deadlines, rolling applications via the Sede Electrónica (Concejalía de Innovación).
- Entry via the Sandbox Kit (participation guide + FAQs +
guarantees info — the 6-PDF kit is in
raw/documents/01-sandbox/). - Full application workflow (form → subsanación → Comisión de Valoración → resolution within 3 months → test protocol → execution) is documented on Valencia Urban Sandbox (Program).
Key facts
- Launched under Valencia Innovation Capital as part of the Estrategia Urbana València 2030.
- Governed by a municipal ordinance (
Ordenanza reguladora del Sandbox Urbano, full text inraw/documents/01-sandbox/) — this is a genuine legal/regulatory instrument, not just a marketing programme. - 2025 activity documented in the Memoria Anual 2025 (
raw/documents/01-sandbox/). - Priority focus sectors mirror VIC's eight verticals: govtech, agrotech, immersive/gaming, semiconductors, emergency/security/defense, sustainable tourism, urban tech, digital health.
- 25 June 2026: the Sandbox was extended into the port environment via a "strategic alliance" with the Port Authority of València — evidence of active expansion beyond the original city-only scope (per VIC's 2026-07-02 "actualidad" news feed). Relevant precedent/context for Valenciaport Sandbox (the port's own separate sandbox instrument) — the two appear to be converging or coordinating; confirm relationship. #status/verify
- Prioritised applicants under the ordinance include beneficiaries of the VIC Innovation Grants 2026 and CPI awardees — the Sandbox and the grant/procurement tools are designed to interlock.
Relations
- Run by: Valencia Innovation Capital
- Runs: Valencia Urban Sandbox (Program)
- Part of: Estrategia Urbana Valencia 2030
- See also: Testbeds (support)
- See also: Valencia Living Lab
- See also: Valenciaport Sandbox
- Required by: Defense Tech Accelerator (Program)
- Required by: VIC Innovation Grants 2026
- Partners with: Valencia Living Lab (Program)