State aid rules

Discretionary relief is subject to state aid rules. You must declare either that your enterprise has received no state aid, or provide details of any such assistance. If the state aid limit is exceeded, any overpayment is recoverable with interest from the recipient.

The following explains the information that we need:

We provide discretionary relief under the De Minimis Regulation (Regulation 1998/2006). This allows an enterprise to receive up to €200,000 de minimis aid over any period of three fiscal years.

To establish whether you are eligible to receive de minimis aid, you must declare the full amount of de minimis aid granted to you during the previous two fiscal years and the current fiscal year.

Any assistance you have received, or are due to receive, from a public body may be de minimis aid. This could be any aid, grant or support from central, regional, devolved governments or agencies or a local council. Assistance could have been granted to your organisation, parent organisation or another company within your group. You must declare all assistance.

The following is not a comprehensive list of all possible forms of aid. However, it should give you an indication of common forms of aid, which you may have been given over the past three years.

list of type of state aid
Type of aid	Description
State grants	Provision of goods and services on preferential terms
Interest rate relief	Indemnities against operating losses
Tax relief	Reimbursement of costs in the event of success
Tax credits	State guarantees, whether direct or indirect, to credit operations preferential re-discount rates
State guarantees or holdings	Dividend guarantees
State provision of goods or services on preferential terms	Preferential public ordering
Direct subsidies	Reduction of, or exemption from, charges or taxes, including accelerated depreciation and the reduction of social contributions
Tax exemptions	Deferred collection of fiscal or social contributions
Preferential interest rates	Assistance financed by special levies
Guarantees of loans on especially favourable terms	Capital transfers
Acquisition of land or buildings either gratuitously or on favourable terms	Certain state holdings in the capital of undertakings.

Any organisation giving you assistance under the de minimis regulation should give you a letter confirming this.

If you are not sure whether any public assistance you have received is de minimis aid, please contact the body that granted the assistance to clarify this.

Please then provide us with information about all forms of public assistance under €200,000 you have received in the last three years.

You should detail the amount of aid, the period it is for, the organisation providing it and the nature of the aid (for example Retail Relief).