For a moment, it looked as though all government coronavirus grants would come to an end after the third quarter of this year. However, a new grant will be introduced for the fourth quarter of this year.
VLN
The Fixed Costs Grant for, amongst other things, night-time closure (VLN) is primarily intended for businesses that suffer a loss of turnover of at least 50% as a result of the mandatory night-time closure (from 00:00 to 06:00).
However, this grant may also be applied for by businesses which are not affected by the mandatory night-time closure but do meet the eligibility criteria. For this latter group of businesses, the outgoing Cabinet has indicated that it will first look for other solutions to offset the loss of turnover before resorting to the VLN. Nevertheless, as mentioned, the VLN grant is available to all businesses provided the conditions are met.
Conditions
In short, the company must meet the following conditions in order to be eligible for the VLN;
- a minimum loss of turnover of 50% in Q4 2021 compared with Q4 2019 or Q1 2020;
- Applications for TVL Q2 and TVL Q3 2021 have been submitted and approved;
- the company was registered with the Chamber of Commerce before 30 June 2020;
- The company must not have already received more than €1.8 million in government grants (maximum amount of state aid).
Please note: one of the conditions is that applications for both TVL Q2 and Q3 2021 have been submitted and approved. Applications for TVL Q3 2021 can still be submitted until 26 October 2021.
Maximum VLN amount
The maximum grant amount for the VLN Q4 2021 is €250,000. The amount depends on the percentage of loss of turnover. The higher the percentage, the higher the grant.
Effective date of application
The subsidy scheme is expected to open in the second half of November. As with the TVL, applications must be submitted via the RFO be submitted.