The second round of the Get Exporting grant programme offers funding between £3,000 and £10,000 (with a 25% match from your business) to help York and North Yorkshire businesses grow their export activity. Grants can be used to attend international trade events, adapt websites or marketing materials for overseas markets, or access export consultancy and legal advice.
Eligible businesses must be based in York or North Yorkshire and have been trading for at least 12 months. Applicants should already be exporting , or be able to show an interest in exporting, such as working with the Department for Business and Trade or having completed initial market research.
Key Dates
Applications open 17th November 2025 and close at 5pm on 2nd January 2026.
Grant decisions will be announced in early to mid-March 2026.
Please note: any costs incurred before signing a grant agreement will not be eligible for funding. Make sure your proposed project won’t need any grant-funded expenditure before April 1, 2026.
Read the application guidance carefully before applying. If you prefer a Microsoft Word version of this guidance, click here.
Get Exporting: Programme Overview
The Get Exporting grant programme is a £635K grant scheme that forms part of the Mayoral Business Innovation Fund. The programme’s primary objectives are:
- Increasing the number of YNY-based businesses involved in export activities
- Increasing the amount/range of exporting carried out by existing YNY-based exporters.
Revenue grants of between £3,000-£10,000 are available. Businesses are required to fund 25% of the total project cost themselves (this is called match funding).
It is anticipated that there will be multiple funding rounds between now and March 2027. However, we reserve the right to close the programme early should the initial phases absorb all the funds.
Applicant Eligibility
The scheme will only be available to businesses with a trading address in York or North Yorkshire. Businesses will need to have been customer trading for a minimum of 12 months.
Businesses must have a demonstrable existing interest in exporting. For those businesses not already exporting, examples of how this interest might be evidenced include participation in the DBT Export Academy course, meaningful previous engagement with DBT representatives, or completion of initial export research (relevant to the business/sector). These examples are not exhaustive.
Applicants who have benefitted from an export grant within the last 18 months are eligible to apply. However their applications must evidence the impact of previous funding and explain how the new project will build on previous activity.
Project Eligibility
Project timelines
There is no set duration for projects; both short-term and medium-term projects are eligible. However, all projects must be complete by March 2027.
Please be aware that any costs incurred/expenditure made before you have been notified of a grant award and signed a grant funding agreement will not be eligible for grant funding. Signed grant funding agreements are not expected to be in place until mid-March 26 at the earliest. Therefore, please select your grant project proposal carefully, ensuring it will not incur expenditure/need a spend commitment prior to 1 April 2026
Eligible activity
Revenue projects designed to help a business start exporting or diversify/increase its current export activity. Examples of eligible projects include:
- Attending trade events and/or purchase of trade stand equipment
- Adapting websites and/or marketing materials for audiences abroad
- Fees for export-related consultancy or legal advice
- Buying or carrying out market research
The above list is not exhaustive.
Ineligible activity
- Capital expenditure
- Routine revenue costs
- Food/subsistence costs (on trips)
- Salary/employment costs
- Production/operational costs including product development
- Costs relating to the transport or logistics of exporting goods, eg insurance, warehousing
- Activities that support general business processes rather than development of international markets
- Recoverable VAT
- Projects/purchases that have already taken place
- Projects that won’t be completed before the end of March 2027
Assessment Process
We will carry out an initial screening of all applications to ensure they meet the applicant and project eligibility criteria given in this guidance. Applications passing this check will then be passed to an appraisal team who will use Green Book methodology to review the application. This will include an assessment of:
- Project deliverability – the ability of applicants to deliver in full within the timeframe specified
- Impact – the degree to which all outputs and outcomes are likely to be achieved
- Value for money – the delivery of outputs and outcomes at reasonable cost
- Experience – demonstrable experience of delivering similar programmes/projects, where appropriate to the programme.
Applications and appraisers’ assessments will be presented to a panel of internal and external experts, and their recommendations will be forwarded to the Combined Authority’s Director of Economy for a final decision.
