What is a Start Up Loan?

The assistance provided through Start Up Loans, like many Government-backed business support activities, is regarded as Subsidy or State aid.  This is because this assistance is supported by the Government and therefore gives an advantage to the business that receives it.

Subsidies and State aid can come in different forms and the giving of subsidies is governed by UK law under the Subsidy Control Act 2022. However, if your business is in scope of the Northern Ireland Protocol, European regulations on State aid will be relevant instead.

Determining whether your business is in scope of the Northern Ireland Protocol

As part of a loan application, you will need to complete the following questions which will assess if your business is potentially in scope of the Northern Ireland protocol:

• Is your business, or is it going to be, established or registered in Northern Ireland? 
• If you have answered Yes to question 1, is your business:
  1. involved in the manufacture or sale of goods?^{Read footnote text 1}   or
  2. does it operate in the Northern Ireland Wholesale Electricity Market?^{Read footnote text 2} ; or
  3. do you have plans either to start manufacturing or selling such goods or to operate in the Northern Ireland Wholesale Electricity Market in the next three years)?

If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, then it is likely you are in scope of the Northern Ireland Protocol and your loan application will fall within the de minimis State aid regulations.

UK Subsidy Control Act 2022

If your business is not in scope of the Northern Ireland Protocol, your Start Up Loans application will be dealt with as a subsidy subject to the Minimal Financial Assistance provisions of the UK Subsidy Control Act 2022.

There is a maximum amount of subsidy (GBP 315,000) that you can receive over a rolling period of three fiscal years, and any Start Up Loan you receive will count towards that total. The rolling three-year period is calculated as the time elapsed in the fiscal year the offer date of your Start Up Loan falls in (commencing on 1 April), plus the previous two fiscal years preceding that year each ending on 31 March). During the application process, you must tell us the amount of any subsidies that you have received during that three-year period.

It is your responsibility to keep a written record of the amount of Minimal Financial Assistance you have received and the date/s when it was received. The written record must be kept for at least three years beginning with the date on which the Minimal Financial Assistance was given.

If your loan application proceeds to our later stages, then we will notify you in writing of the amount of Minimal Financial Assistance applicable to you, and to ask you to confirm that the statutory limits will not be exceeded.

You can find out more about the UK subsidy control regime at gov.uk/government/collections/subsidy-control-regime.

EU De Minimis Regulations

If your business is in scope of the Northern Ireland Protocol, your Start Up Loans application will be dealt with as De Minimis State aid subject to the EU De Minimis Regulations.

State aid is a European Commission term which refers to forms of assistance from a public body or publicly funded body, given on a discretionary basis to undertakings engaged in economic commercial activity, with the potential to distort competition in the European Union market by favouring one provider over another. Provision of such State aid is governed by regulations made by the European Commission.

De minimis State aid is a term used to describe small amounts of State aid that do not require European Commission approval. The total De Minimis State aid which can be given to a single recipient is EUR 300,000 over a rolling full three year period. Lower limits apply if your new business is related to the primary production of agriculture, fisheries and/or aquaculture. In addition, the rolling three-year period is calculated differently depending on whether your business relates to (a) the primary production of agricultural products or another eligible sector^{Read footnote text 3}  or (b) the primary production of fishery and acquacultural products^{Read footnote text 4} . De minimis State aid cannot be given to help establish a distribution network or for other expenditure linked to an export activity (and also cannot be used to fund certain activities within the fisheries and aquaculture sector as listed in Article 1, Paragraph 1 of European Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/2391).

It is the loan recipient’s responsibility to retain records of any State aid arising from assistance received for a minimum of ten years from the date of receipt and to ensure they do not exceed the rolling three full years limit.

If a loan recipient makes any other application to a support scheme which provides State aid during the next three years, they will be required to inform the operator of that scheme about the State aid received from Start Up Loans and any other applicable aid from other sources.

Should you be successful in your application, we will email you the value of the De Minimis State aid arising from your Start Up Loan.

If your application is successful, we may be required to upload certain information about you, including the following, that is published on an online register to be hosted in the EU (the “EU De Minimis Register”) from 1 January 2026 to the extent your application for a Start Up Loan is accepted on or after 1 January 2026: your full name; your national insurance number; the amount of your loan and when you received it; your business sector; and the authority that granted the aid.

The EU De Minimis Register will have: (i) an internal version where all the abovementioned details will be fully visible to government bodies and other entities that provide State aid in Northern Ireland; and (ii) a public version where all the abovementioned details will be fully visible to the general public, except that either part of your name or part of your national insurance number will be masked.

The EU De Minimis Register is intended to provide transparent access to de minimis State aid award data that is published by Member States and applicable national authorities in compliance with the applicable de minimis regulations and the European transparency requirements for State aid.

Information will be kept on the EU De Minimis Register for up to ten years. We and your lender may correspond with each other about such information for the purpose of fulfilling our obligations under the EU State aid rules. Please also refer to  The Start-Up Loans Company’s Privacy Policy.

You can find more information about State aid here or by visiting the EU Commission website.

The “current fiscal year” means the fiscal year of your business in which the date of your loan agreement for your Start Up Loan falls.

• ^{Return to footnote location 1}

  The manufacturing and sale of goods would include the primary production of agricultural products or production, processing or marketing of fishery and aquaculture products.

• ^{Return to footnote location 2}

  This means the Northern Ireland/Ireland single Electricity market specifically in relation to the generation, transmission, distribution, or supply of wholesale electricity.

• ^{Return to footnote location 3}

  In this case, “rolling three-year period” means the previous full three years either: (a) when considering the impact of any previous subsidy on the provision of your Start Up Loan; or (b) when considering the impact of the subsidy attributable to your Start Up Loan on any future applications for aid. The previous three full years can also be understood as the previous thirty six (36) months.

• ^{Return to footnote location 4}

  In this case, the “rolling three-year period” is defined as follows: (a) when considering the impact of any previous subsidy on the provision of your Start Up Loan, the current fiscal year and the two preceding fiscal years; or (b) when considering the impact of the subsidy attributable to your Start Up Loan on any future applications for aid, the current fiscal year and the two subsequent fiscal years.