Regional business greening loan or guarantee

Your business must qualify as micro, small or medium and be registered in Latvia’s Commercial Register or Enterprise Register. The actual project site determines regional eligibility, not your registered office. Projects must be in Latgale, Vidzeme, Zemgale or Kurzeme, excluding Riga, Jūrmala and the municipalities of Ādaži, Ķekava, Mārupe, Olaine, Ropaži, Salaspils, Sigulda, Tukums, Ogre, Saulkrasti and Limbaži.

• Your business must pass ALTUM’s credit and customer checks and be able to repay without the rebate. It checks the share of your assets financed by the business’s own capital: ALTUM’s adjusted equity ratio must be at least 10%. It also checks debt relative to earnings: projected net debt must be no more than 7.5 times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, assessed before the rebate. Its debt-service test checks the resources generated to cover principal and interest payments; this coverage must be at least 1.2 times the payments due under ALTUM’s assessment. ALTUM also assesses security: its example requires €200,000 of accepted collateral for a €600,000 loan.
• Tax and social-contribution arrears must not exceed €150 in total, except amounts covered by an authorised extension, instalment plan or deferral. Businesses in financial difficulty are excluded.
• Renewable generation normally requires at least 80% annual own-use. Heat-production investments are exempt from this test. Electricity is assessed at the connection point, or across all your sites if you participate in net settlement. Storage must connect directly to renewable generation; under the General Block Exemption Regulation, at least 75% of its annual charging must come from that installation. That 75% test does not apply under de minimis aid.
• Solid biomass is supported only in hybrid systems with zero-emission technology, with the biomass boiler used for peak loads. ALTUM lists the heating priority as district heating, then efficient zero-emission heat, then a hybrid with biomass.
• For building improvements, you must own the property or hold lease or building rights lasting at least ten years and at least as long as the loan or guarantee. Register those rights in the Land Register before the first drawdown request. The costs of reaching energy class E are not financed. Purchased equipment must be new; passenger vehicles in categories M1 and M2 and goods vehicles in categories N1 and N2 are excluded.

Primary agriculture, fishing and aquaculture, tobacco manufacture and trade, and gambling are excluded. A business with both eligible and excluded activities can qualify if it separates activities and financial flows so the excluded part receives no benefit. Fossil-fuel investments, refinancing expenditure already financed, debt repayment, and co-financing or advance-financing other EU-funded projects are also excluded. A project must not be completed before the support decision.

ALTUM first assesses the project under de minimis rules, which limit the public aid available to your group. If that allowance is insufficient, the General Block Exemption Regulation may provide an alternative, with different aid limits. Under that alternative, apply before starting work or making an irreversible commitment such as a binding equipment order. New-product or technology development and energy-service providers can receive only de minimis support. A single project cannot mix the two aid bases.

De minimis aid may be combined with other aid within the applicable aid limits, with no more than 100% support for the same cost item. Under the General Block Exemption Regulation, this EU-funded support cannot be combined with other state aid for the same eligible costs.

Keep the funded assets in their intended use and working order for at least five years after the final payment. Meter the energy generated and consumed, including at replacement equipment. Construction projects must provide for recycling at least 70% of non-hazardous construction or demolition waste.

Status

Open continuously

Apply through mans.altum.lv using the regional SME greening application, “Atbalsta pieteikums uzņēmumu zaļināšanai MVU reģionos”. Register or update your client questionnaire, complete the SME declaration, and attach financial information and the relevant technical documents. These include a building energy certificate, energy audit, generation/storage simulation or product environmental declaration, as appropriate to the investment; use the required certified specialist to establish the project’s expected energy or emissions results. Include permits, costs and evidence of property rights and own-use where applicable.

State whether you want an ALTUM loan or a bank loan. For the bank route, also apply to the bank; it decides on the loan and submits the guarantee application to ALTUM. Your application is rejected if complete and correct technical documentation, or the bank’s guarantee application where required, is not submitted within six months of your support application.

Applications remain open while funding lasts. ALTUM gives 31 December 2027 as the final date for support decisions. Complete the project by February 2029 and submit the rebate application and results report by 31 March 2029. Completion includes paying for the work and obtaining required permissions. For equipment-only projects, you must acquire ownership of the equipment. ALTUM checks the results before reducing the loan: missing the report deadline or failing to achieve the agreed results means no rebate.