Eligibility

 

Export Market Development Grants (EMDG) is an eligibility-based grant program. You must meet all eligibility criteria to be offered a grant.

EMDG Rules 2021 on legislation.gov.au sets the rules for the program. You must read the EMDG Grant Guidelines.

The Export Market Development Grants Overview 2022 video (10 minutes, YouTube) provides an overview of the EMDG program, eligibility requirements and how to apply for the program. If you have any problems with the video content, please contact EMDG.

Eligibility requirements

Eligibility requirements include:

• your turnover for the financial year before the financial year in which the application is made is less than $20 million
• you must be an Australian person as per the EMDG Rules 2021
• you must have an Australian Business Number.

Read Section 4.1 of the guidelines for a complete list of eligibility requirements.

EMDG grant funds must be used for:

• promotional activities to market eligible products in foreign countries, or
• for training activities to develop skills in marketing for this purpose.

Eligible products

To be an eligible product, your product(s) must be of substantially Australian origin and be:

• goods
• services
• events
• intellectual property or know-how
• software.

For more information about eligible products, read:

• Section 5 of the EMDG guidelines. This has guidance on what ‘of substantially Australian origin’ means
• ‘Eligible products’, Part 3 of the EMDG Rules
• ‘Eligible products’, Division 4 of the Export Market Development Grants Act 1997 on legislation.gov.au.

Eligible expenses

We provide the EMDG grant for expenses in one or more of the following categories:

• maintaining a representative in a foreign country
• short trips to a foreign country for the specific purpose of export promotion
• engaging a consultant to do research or promotional activities
• short trips within Australia for the specific purpose of engaging with foreign buyers (that is, not general industry events or network activities where no foreign buyers are present)
• foreign buyer visits
• soliciting for business in a foreign country
• providing free samples to potential foreign buyers
• producing and providing promotional and advertising material specifically for international export promotion
• intellectual property rights
• if you are a Tier 1 applicant, obtaining export readiness training.

The EMDG Grant Guidelines have more information, including about ineligible expenses and designated connections.

Ineligible expenses - export to Russia and Belarus

Austrade is no longer accepting marketing or promotional expenses for the export of products to Russia and/or Belarus. This applies to marketing or promotional expenses incurred:

• on or after 7 April 2022 for the export of products listed in Autonomous Sanctions (Export Sanctioned Goods—Russia) Amendment (No.1) Designation 2022 (legislation.gov.au)
• after 19 April 2022 for other eligible products.

Austrade considers these expenses detrimental to Australia’s trade reputation. We are excluding them as an eligible expense under rule 47 of the EMDG Rules.

These changes will remain in place until further notice.

Turnover of less than $20 million

If you are an SME exporter at the time you apply for a grant, your annual turnover for the financial year before the financial year in which the application is made must be less than $20 million. Annual turnover is the total ordinary income that you derive in the income year while running your business. 

For more information about turnover requirements, see:

• Eligibility conditions for applicants other than representative bodies in EMDG Rules 2021 on legislation.gov.au
• Section 4.2 of the EMDG Guidelines.

Applying for a new round

If you've accepted an agreement in a previous round

Grantees:

• cannot enter multiple grant agreements with overlapping activity periods
• can only apply for a new grant agreement during the final year of their current agreement.

For example, you wouldn’t be able to apply for Round 3 if you had an active grant agreement that extends beyond financial year 2022–23.

If you haven’t accepted an agreement in a previous round

You can apply in a new round if you:

• have a pending grant agreement application for a previous round, or
• haven’t yet accepted a previous round grant agreement.

A grantee cannot enter into multiple grant agreements that have overlapping activity periods. For example, if you have been offered 2 grant agreements from separate rounds that cover the same year, you can only accept one of them. Once you have accepted one, we will consider the other withdrawn.

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Contact us

• Call: 13 28 78
• Email: EMDG.help@austrade.gov.au