12 December 2018

Grants for businesses that complete customs declarations

Applications are now open for businesses to get funding to help their business complete customs declarations, in preparation for the UK leaving the EU.

You can apply to get funding for:

• training that helps your employees to complete customs declarations and processes
• IT improvements to help your business complete customs declarations more efficiently

Who can apply?

You can apply if your business completes customs declarations and is established in, or has a branch in the UK. This includes customs brokers, freight forwarders and fast parcel operators.

You can apply for just one of the grants, or both.

Your business has to meet certain requirements, depending on which grant you want to apply for. 

Training grant

To apply for the training grant, your business must either:

• complete customs declarations for yourself or someone else (or intend to in the future)
• import from, or export to the EU and complete customs declarations (or intend to complete customs declarations in the future)

The grant will give you up to 50 per cent of the cost of training for your employees, up to a limit of £750 for each employee on a course.

The training must give your employees skills to:

• complete customs declarations and processes
• help other businesses with import and export processes

The training does not have to lead to a formal qualification.

You cannot use the funding:

• towards the existing costs of current training
• for other unrelated training

IT improvements grant

To apply for the IT improvements grant, your business must:

• currently complete customs declarations for importers and exporters
• have 250 employees or fewer
• have an annual turnover of £50 million or less

The grant will give you up to €200,000 (the maximum amount of state aid available) to buy software that will help your business to complete customs declarations more efficiently.

The software must be a ready-made solution - you cannot use the funding to commission bespoke software.

You can also use the funding to:

• buy hardware that's needed for the software to run
• install and configure the software and hardware
• buy the first year licence
• train employees to use the software

You cannot use the funding for unrelated networking costs.

How to apply

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is administering the grants for HMRC. Apply online through PwC on the link below. Apply online through PwC.