Grants for businesses that complete customs declarations

From early December 2018, you can apply to get funding to help your 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)

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

What you must use the grants for

Training

The grant will give you up to 50% 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

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.

You’ll be able to find more information about the grants and apply on PwC’s website. The link to apply will be published here in early December 2018.