New Fund To Assist Businesses In Completely Customs Declarations

Businesses are being encouraged to apply for funding to help complete customs declarations, in preparation for the UK leaving the EU.

Businesses 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

The funding is open to businesses that complete customs declarations and is established in, or has a branch in the UK. This includes customs brokers, freight forwarders and fast parcel operators.

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

The business has to meet certain requirements, depending on which grant you want to apply for. Details on how to apply for the grants are available in early December.

To apply for the training grant, businesses 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

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.