Consultancy grant
Established small and medium-sized businesses in Gotland can fund external analyses for fossil-free, resource-efficient operations and better energy efficiency.
Ta możliwość jest obecnie dostępna po angielsku.
Hire an external consultant to analyse your business and its products or services, prepare a sustainability strategy, or investigate how to improve energy efficiency. These are supported uses of the Konsultcheck’s sustainable-transition option. The grant covers SEK 10,000–100,000 and at most 50% of consultancy costs. Your own work cannot count towards co-financing.
This covers a development step rather than routine business expenses. Continuous or periodic consultancy, normal operating costs, advertising, legally required investments and your own staff costs are excluded.
The award decision sets the approved work, maximum grant and time period. Costs must be reasonable, incurred within that period, paid and supported by accounting records. If you do not complete and report the work within the decision’s timeframe, no grant is paid; an extension may be allowed for special reasons.
Keep the supported work separately accounted for. VAT is eligible only if you cannot deduct or recover it; if a later tax decision makes it recoverable, incorrectly paid VAT support must be repaid. Document commercial purchases using non-discrimination, equal treatment, openness, proportionality and mutual recognition. Procurement laws apply where you are subject to them. For purchases above the applicable direct-procurement threshold, the conditions require the same written request to at least two potential suppliers and written records of offers and the agreement.
Acknowledge Region Gotland’s funding when communicating publicly about the work. Supply requested monitoring information and reports, cooperate with audits, and promptly notify the region in writing of changed circumstances. Obtain approval in advance for changes such as the project’s direction, budget, financing, recipient or reporting timetable.
Payment must be withheld and support already paid must be repaid if incorrect information caused an incorrect award, you should have realised an award was incorrect, the support is not used for its approved purpose or the conditions are not met. Recovery interest starts one month after the recovery decision at the state lending rate plus two percentage points. The recovery claim or interest may be reduced for special reasons.
Eligibility
- Your established business must already have sales and at least one employee paid a market wage. It must carry out economic activity, hold Swedish F-tax approval, be registered in Sweden and have its main fixed workplace, identified by a CFAR number, in Gotland County.
- You must meet the EU small and medium-sized enterprise definition: fewer than 250 staff and annual turnover no higher than EUR 50 million and/or a balance-sheet total no higher than EUR 43 million. Include proportionate data for partner businesses and all data for linked businesses as required by Annex I; assess the group’s ownership relationships rather than only your company’s own accounts. Partner companies generally involve holdings of at least 25%; linked companies involve majority voting, appointment rights or dominant influence, including qualifying indirect relationships. Public ownership or control of at least 25% generally prevents SME status, subject to Annex I’s exceptions for public investment corporations, universities or nonprofit research centres, institutional investors including regional development funds, and autonomous local authorities with annual budgets below EUR 10 million and fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, provided the investors are not linked to the business.
- Apply before starting the work. Wages and employment benefits must follow a collective agreement or be equivalent to the industry’s collective-agreement terms. The business must be judged capable of profitability and lasting employment.
Region Gotland prefers businesses serving markets beyond the region. It normally does not support local or regional-only businesses where similar products or services are already available, such as shops, local services and construction businesses. It prioritises businesses producing their own goods or services in the county and environmentally, socially and economically sustainable projects.
Support is normally excluded for businesses able to finance the work themselves, businesses in a weak financial position or bankrupt within the past year, agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture, and businesses whose company, owner or board member has public debts or payment defaults. You cannot purchase from a related supplier: this includes close family, a partner, group companies and businesses in which there is an ownership interest.
Where EU block-exemption rules apply, an undertaking in difficulty is excluded. For SMEs, this includes insolvency or meeting creditor-triggered insolvency criteria, outstanding rescue aid or an ongoing restructuring plan, and limited-liability companies or companies with members bearing unlimited liability losing more than half their capital through accumulated losses. That capital-loss test does not apply to SMEs less than three years old. The EU rules also allow an exception for businesses that were not in difficulty on 31 December 2019 but entered difficulty between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2021; Region Gotland’s normal exclusion for weak finances still applies. Payment cannot be made while an EU Commission recovery order for unlawful Swedish aid is outstanding.
The legal basis brings further conditions. External consultancy under Article 18 must be nonroutine. Environmental or energy studies under Article 49 must relate directly to investments eligible under its environmental-aid section; only the part of the study or consultancy costs relating to those eligible investments qualifies. A study can be supported even if no investment follows, but compulsory energy audits are excluded unless additional to the compulsory audit. For support under Swedish section 16, the decision must prohibit applying for the same measure through the national Just Transition Fund programme.
For support under Swedish section 17, a business in liquidation or bankruptcy or with Swedish tax or fee debts at the Enforcement Authority cannot receive support. If awarded as de minimis aid, the ceiling is EUR 300,000 of such aid from Sweden over any three-year period for a single undertaking, including businesses connected through controlling voting, appointment or influence rights. Declare other aid: combining aid for the same costs must not exceed the applicable aid ceiling. Aid directly tied to export quantities, export distribution networks or other ongoing export costs, or conditional on using domestic rather than imported goods, is excluded.
How to apply
- Status
- Nabór ciągły
- Warunki naboru
- Apply before starting the consultancy work.
Apply through Min Ansökan. Under “Regionens erbjudanden om stöd”, choose “Konsultcheck”. Region Gotland makes decisions on consultancy checks continuously; grants depend on available funding and assessment.
Include a business plan or similar document, a budget or forecast for the current/next year, a current registration certificate, the latest accounts or tax return and the NE annex specified for sole traders, trading partnerships and limited partnerships, and quotations for all requested costs. The signed application must describe the work and disclose other support sought or awarded for the same costs. If de minimis rules apply, also report all de minimis aid awarded over the past three years.
After completing eligible work, request payment in Min Ansökan with invoice copies and bank/payment evidence showing payment and the payee. An authorised signatory must sign; the final payment request also needs a final report. Region Gotland pays after checking and approving the request.