Eligibility checker for £120m Omicron business support package opens

Businesses in Wales impacted by the rapid spread of the Omicron virus can now find out how much they can expect to receive in emergency financial support from the Welsh Government.

Economy Minister Vaughan Gething previously said £120m would be available for retail, hospitality, leisure and tourism business and their supply chains affected by the move to alert level 2 announced by the First Minister on Wednesday 22 December.

The support package includes funding from the Economic Resilience Fund (ERF), with an eligibility checker for this fund now live on the Business Wales website.

This will help businesses, including charities and social enterprises, to gauge how much they can expect to receive from the ERF.

Eligible businesses can apply for grants of between £2,500k – £25,000, with grants dependent on their size and number of employees.

The application window for the ERF will open in week commencing 17 January 2022, with payments starting to reach businesses within days. The application window will be open for two weeks.

Economy Minister, Vaughan Gething, said:

“We recognise that businesses are facing another hugely uncertain time due to the Omicron variant of Coronavirus. The eligibility checker which goes live today will help them forward plan during this challenging period.

“Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve provided over £2.6bn of support to businesses throughout Wales to help them manage their way through difficult circumstances. This latest £120 million package of support will further assist impacted businesses and we will get financial support to them as quickly as possible.”

Non-essential retail, hospitality, leisure and tourism businesses in Wales will also receive support from the Non Domestic Rates (NDR) linked grant which will be administered by Local Authorities. Businesses will be entitled to a payment of £2,000, £4,000 or £6,000 depending on their rateable value.

Local Authorities will also be administrating a discretionary fund for sole traders, freelancers and taxi drivers and businesses that employee people but do not pay business rates.

The registration process for the NDR linked grants and application process for the discretionary fund will open week commencing the 10 January 2022.