THE Commonwealth and the ACT governments have expanded the COVID-19 Business Support Grants and announced new one-off grants for the tourism, accommodation, hospitality, and arts and events sectors. 

As part of this extension there will be an additional ACT COVID-19 Business Grant Extension payment of $10,000 for all employing businesses and $3,750 for non-employing businesses who were eligible for the COVID-19 Business Support Grant in industries still significantly impacted by the health restrictions.

Additional one-off top-up payments will also be made for larger businesses at the following rates:

• $10,000 for employing businesses with a turnover greater than $2 million and less than $5 million
• $20,000  for employing businesses with a turnover greater than $5 million and less than $10 million
• $30,000 for employing businesses with a turnover greater than $10 million

Businesses must be registered in the ACT and able to demonstrate their primary operation in the ACT, have an annual turnover of more than $75,000, be registered for GST and have a total payroll of less than $10 million. They will also need to provide evidence of a 30 per cent reduction in their turnover.

As the tourism, accommodation provider, arts and events and hospitality industries have been particularly hard hit by not only the current restrictions in the ACT but before the lockdown in the ACT the health restrictions in NSW and Victoria, further one-off grants will be provided to these industries, including:

• $1000 for non-employing businesses
• $3000 for employing businesses with turnover less than $2 million
• $10,000 for employing businesses with turnover greater than $2 million and less than $5 million
• $20,000 for employing businesses with turnover greater than $5 million

The eligibility criteria will match the eligibility criteria for the COVID-19 Business Support Grant.