Eligible enterprises are those who qualify as micro, small or medium-sized enterprises.

Support per project from EUR 10,000 to EUR 130,000 with an aid intensity of:

1. 70% of eligible costs if the aid is granted in accordance with Commission Regulation No. 1407/2013;
2. 45% of the eligible costs for micro, and small enterprises and 35% of the eligible costs for medium-sized enterprises, if the aid is granted in accordance with Commission Regulation No. 651/2014. However, under Regulation No. 651/2014, the aid intensity for the costs of testing, certifying, and securing intellectual property rights for a new product or technology is 50% of the eligible costs.

Supported activities:

• Experimental development, including prototyping;
• Official travel directly related to the development of a new product or technology;
• Purchase of materials and similar products necessary for the development of a new product or technology;
• Testing and certification of a new product or technology;
• Consolidating the intellectual property of a new product or technology;
• Information and communication activities;
• The financing of knowledge transfer activities with a Small Grant Scheme project partner, which is necessary for the development of a new product or technology.

To qualify for co-financing a project, the applicant must meet the following requirements at the time of being granted aid:

• The project applicant is an enterprise registered in the Commercial Register of the Republic of Latvia and corresponds to the status of a micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) as defined in Annex 1 of Commission Regulation No. 651/2014 of 17 June 2014;
• The project promoter has not been declared insolvent by a court ruling, a legal protection process has not been set in motion by a court ruling, its economic activity has not been terminated;
• The project applicant does not owe taxes or fees administered by the State Revenue Service (SRS), including mandatory payments of state social insurance debt in excess of EUR 1,000;
• The project applicant has not been found guilty of the following offences by the decision of a competent authority or a court judgment that has entered into effect and has thereby become incontestable and unappealable: employing 1 to 5 persons who are not entitled to reside in the Republic of Latvia; been punished for the criminal offence referred to in Paragraph 2, Section 280 of the Criminal Law of the Republic of Latvia; has no coercive measures regarding the commitment of the criminal offence referred to herein applied to it.
• The project applicant does not have any of the sanctions outlined in Article 11.2. of the Law on International Sanctions and National Sanctions of the Republic of Latvia imposed against them.

If the aid is granted to the applicant in accordance with Commission Regulation No. 651/2014 (other than de minimis aid), then in addition to the requirements set out above, an applicant who does not qualify as an enterprise in difficulty as defined in Article 2(18) of Commission Regulation No. 651/2014 at the time the aid is granted may qualify for co-financing.²

As part of the small grant scheme, a project can also be submitted in cooperation with a project partner that can be any public or private body, commercial or non-commercial and non-governmental organisation registered as a legal entity in the Kingdom of Norway or the Republic of Latvia. If the applicant has a partner from the donor country (Norway), this criterion will grant extra points. The project partner and the applicant will work together within the framework of the project and the partner will share best practices in the development of a specific product and/or technology, knowledge in product/technology development, and perform product/technology development activities (such as the reduction of environmental indicators) to develop a variety of possible scenarios related to the development of the new product/technology in order to achieve the project’s objectives.

During the implementation of a Small Grant Scheme project, the recipient of the co-financing will develop a prototype of at least one new product or technology that is not intended for commercial use.

The Programme is regulated by Cabinet of Ministers Regulation No. 4 “Rules for the Implementation of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism Programme of the 2014-2021 period “Entrepreneurship Development, Innovations and Small and Medium Enterprises”” (adopted on 7 January 2021).

The regulations and related documentation will be published before each project submission call.

• Norwegian Financial Mechanisms website
• Information about the programme – LIAA website
• NACE Rev. 2 statistical classification of economic activities to identify your company’s NACE code
• Information on determining SME status
• Database of tax (fee) debtors administered by the SRS (debt must not exceed EUR 150)
• Calculator for determining whether a company is in financial difficulty
• Information on de minimis aid