Business energy efficiency loan with a principal rebate

• The borrower must be a micro, small, medium or large commercial business registered in Latvia, with the project in Latvia. Associations and foundations cannot apply.
• Tax and social-contribution arrears must not exceed EUR 150, except amounts covered by an approved extension or payment agreement. Insolvency or legal-protection proceedings exclude de minimis borrowers; large businesses also need a credit rating of at least B–. Under the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER), the business group must satisfy the formal undertaking-in-difficulty exclusion, subject to its statutory exception, and have no outstanding aid-recovery order. Applicants must declare that creditors cannot require insolvency proceedings under the legal criteria.
• Excluded activities include primary agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture, tobacco, gambling, and land, water and air transport. Taxi services and removals services are exceptions to the land-transport restriction. A business with excluded activities can receive support for an eligible activity only if its activities, costs and financial flows are separated so the excluded activity gains no benefit.
• Buildings must be owned by the business or held under long-term lease or building rights, registered in the Land Register before the first drawdown request. Machinery being replaced must belong to the business. Energy-efficiency projects must achieve at least 30% primary-energy savings; in combined building and non-building GBER projects, the building part must achieve at least 20%. For machinery replacement, an energy auditor selects and justifies a comparable calculation, such as energy use per unit of output.
• Renewable energy must supply the energy needs of non-residential buildings. Under GBER, support cannot be granted after the renewable equipment has entered operation. Renewable installations must be new, and the business must own the installed equipment after completion to receive the rebate. Renewable generation must use at least 80% of annual production for the business's own consumption at the connection, or across its sites when using net settlement. This condition does not apply to heat-production projects. Storage supported under GBER must obtain at least 75% of its stored energy annually from a directly connected renewable installation; an existing linked generator must not already be in use when the storage aid is granted.
• For heat-source projects in Latvian cities with state-city status (valstspilsētas), assess the options in priority order: district heating connection, emission-free renewable technologies, then biomass boilers. Explain the technical, legal and economic choice in the energy-savings calculation.
• Used replacement machinery and fossil-fuel equipment installation, modernisation or replacement are excluded. For non-building efficiency under GBER, eligible costs are the extra investment needed for the efficiency improvement compared with the investment without aid. Energy certificates, audits and energy-savings report preparation are excluded, as are employment-contract costs. VAT is excluded from eligible costs and the rebate calculation.
• De minimis aid counts the rebate and the loan's aid benefit against the allowance available to the single enterprise, including linked businesses; applicants report earlier de minimis aid. If insufficient allowance remains, the energy-efficiency and renewable-energy routes use GBER instead. De minimis projects must not have started before 20 September 2022; GBER projects must not have started before the selection application. Neither may be completed before the loan decision. Starting work means the first construction work or legally binding equipment order or other irreversible commitment; buying land, obtaining permits and feasibility studies do not count. Other public support must be declared, combined aid must stay within permitted intensities, and the same costs cannot be funded twice.
• The electric-vehicle route covers battery-only M1 or N1 vehicles with zero tailpipe CO2 emissions, less than six months' use and less than 6,000 km. Vehicles must be permanently registered in Latvia and not sold or exchanged for a year, except repossession following leasing default. The business must achieve at least 20,000 km annually within a year of registration as the vehicle holder.
• Fossil-fuel activities, landfill, waste incineration and mechanical-biological treatment preparing waste for disposal or incineration are excluded, as are waste-disposal activities causing long-term environmental harm. Activities under the EU Emissions Trading System must project emissions below the relevant free-allocation benchmarks, with reasons supplied if the reduction is not substantial.
• Statutory criminal, labour and competition-law exclusions also apply. The criminal and unauthorized-worker exclusions expire once three years have passed between the final decision and the application; exclusions for employment without a written contract and prohibited resale-price/cartel arrangements expire once twelve months have passed between the final decision and the application. The competition-law restriction does not apply when the competition authority waived or reduced the fine for cooperation under its leniency programme. Suspended, terminated or liquidating businesses and businesses sanctioned for failing to submit required employee notifications are excluded.
• Projects must meet the environmental safeguards: drainage and waterproofing for building renovation, recycling of 70% of non-hazardous construction or demolition waste, lawful asbestos handling, measures to reduce construction noise, dust and pollution, and required combustion-emission controls.

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• Historical third selection round; all programme applications are now closed.[^c1][^c41]
• Third-round loans were capped at EUR 5 million and principal rebates at EUR 1.5 million. The electric-vehicle route was for exporting manufacturing businesses.[^c42]

Applications are closed. Existing borrowers can use ALTUM's programme page for rebate-report forms and contact its Business Energy Efficiency department at ued@altum.lv or +371 28 320 125.

The historical process began with project selection, including an energy-savings calculation and technical evidence. Selected businesses then applied for a loan after receiving ALTUM’s positive selection decision: within four months for rounds 1–3, two months for rounds 4–11, and one month for later rounds. Justified extensions were possible: four further months for rounds 1–3 and one further month thereafter. The proposed energy or emissions targets could not be reduced at the loan-application stage. For electric vehicles, the leasing provider applied for the guarantee on the business’s behalf within eight months of receiving the decision for rounds 1–11, or two months for later rounds.

Obtain at least two supplier or service-provider offers. Related-party construction requires quotations from at least three providers, selection of the lowest price or reasons for another choice, or justification when three quotations cannot be provided.

For energy-efficiency and renewable-energy rebates, complete all project actions, including necessary grid permissions and full supplier payment, then submit the results report and supporting technical documents. Use a certified energy auditor unless the project only bought solar or wind electricity-generation equipment. For projects without a rebate decision by 4 November 2025, the amended rules require the results report by 30 June 2029. ALTUM checks the results; missed targets or a late report mean no rebate.

For electric-vehicle rebates, submit the mileage report to ALTUM by 30 June 2029. The financed project and mileage must match the approved application; missed targets or a late report mean no rebate.

Recipients must follow the contractual funding-publicity requirements and keep aid records for ten years from the grant of aid. GBER recipients must provide the information to the competent authorities on request. Unlawful state aid must be repaid with interest.