Business support grant funding

Applications for Omicron hospitality and leisure grant closed on 18 March 2022.

This grant was to support hospitality, leisure and accommodation businesses who have had their trading impacted by the surge in Covid cases because of the Omicron variant.

• Find out more about the Omicron hospitality and leisure grant

Applications for Omicron hospitality and leisure grant closed on 18 March 2022.

Discretionary grants were available to sole traders and micro/small/medium sized businesses occupying business premises subject to business rates in specific sectors we have carefully considered.

• Find out more about the Omicron additional restrictions grant

Applications for the restart grant closed on 30 June 2021.

To support the recovery as restrictions on businesses are relaxed, a one-off 'restart grant' has been paid to non-essential retail businesses and hospitality, accommodation, leisure, personal care and gym businesses that have been receiving on-going lockdown grant payments. An equivalent discretionary grant has been paid to businesses that have been receiving on-going discretionary grants.

The grant amounts are:

Non-essential retail properties:

• Rateable value of £15,000 or less: a grant of £2,667
• Rateable value over £15,000 and less than £51,000: a grant of £4,000
• Rateable value of £51,000 or above: a grant of £6,000

Hospitality, accommodation, leisure, personal care and gym properties:

• Rateable value of £15,000 or less: a grant of £8,000
• Rateable value over £15,000 and less than £51,000: a grant of £12,000
• Rateable value of £51,000 or above: a grant of £18,000

The government has provided a detailed list of eligible business types within each sector - view detailed list (PDF).

Rate paying businesses that are legally required to close, and which have received the lockdown grant payments to 15 February 2021, are also entitled to receive the national lump sum grants recently announced by the government. These grants have been paid. The grant amounts are:

• £4,000 for businesses with a rateable value of £15,000 or under
• £6,000 for businesses with a rateable value between £15,000 and £51,000
• £9,000 for businesses with a rateable value of over £51,000.

Details of the discretionary grant schemes from November 2020 to June 2021 can be seen on the Additional restrictions grant page. Leicester received £12.5m, which was paid to businesses.

The one-off £1,000 Christmas grant for ‘wet-led' pubs has now closed.

The local restrictions support grant provided grants every 14 or 28 days during lockdown periods from 5 November 2020 to 31 March 2021 for businesses legally required to close. Lump sum grants were also payable in January 2021. There was also a grant for businesses in the hospitality, leisure and accommodation sectors that were allowed to remain open from August to November 2020. All of these grant schemes have now closed to new applications, the final closure date being 31 May 2021.