We're a farm. Can we apply?

Not for primary production. The guidance excludes businesses whose main activity is primary agricultural production — crops, animal production, forestry, logging, fisheries and aquaculture — and it extends that exclusion to on-farm activities needed to prepare a product for first sale, including cutting, filleting and freezing, and the first sale to resellers or processors. A food business that processes further into a branded retail product is a different question from the farm gate, and it is worth reading the definition carefully before you write off an idea. If your business straddles both, that is exactly the point to get advice rather than guess on the form.

Can we start the project now and claim later?

No, and this is the single most expensive mistake available in this scheme. The guidance is explicit that you must not commence project activities or incur any costs until you receive a grant Letter of Offer from Invest NI. If you sign contracts, give permission to start work, raise invoices or make payments beforehand, those costs cannot be claimed — and the guidance warns it could prevent you accessing support at all. Decisions are expected by the end of October 2026, with the indicative project window running from the start of October 2026 to the end of June 2027.

Is the grant taxable?

Assume it affects your tax position and get the treatment agreed before you spend, rather than discovering it at the year end. As a general rule a grant that covers revenue costs is brought into trading profits and taxed, while a grant against capital expenditure is dealt with through the capital allowances computation instead. Most BIG-eligible activities — market research, validation, consultancy, trade fairs — look like revenue spend, which means the grant is likely to be taxable income in the year it relates to. That does not make it a bad deal. It does mean the cash you plan around should be the after-tax figure, not the headline.

What does the 'affordability' test actually mean?

It is one of the pass/fail intervention principles: can the company afford to fund the project? The guidance asks you to attach evidence such as financial accounts, a bank statement or a letter from your accountant. That is a very specific request, and it is the part most often left to the last evening. If your last set of accounts is filed but stale, or your management accounts do not exist, that is the job to start now — not on 3 September.

Why does subsidy control work differently for us in Northern Ireland?

Because of Article 10(1) of the Windsor Framework. The BIG guidance sets it out plainly: support awarded to goods-trading companies is treated as de minimis aid under Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/2831, while support to wholly service-based companies is treated as a subsidy under the UK Subsidy Control Act 2022. Businesses that are a combination of goods and services are captured by Article 10(1) too. The guidance also notes that from 1 January 2026 all de minimis aid must be registered on an EU-wide public database. None of that is a reason not to apply — but it is a reason to know which side of the line you sit on, and what other aid you have already had.

Invest NI's £20,000 innovation grant opens Monday. It is not 70% off.

Reacting to: Business Innovation Grant for NI businesses (nibusinessinfo.co.uk) →

Invest NI's Business Innovation Grant opens for applications on Monday 10 August and closes at 12 noon on Friday 4 September 2026. It offers Northern Ireland sole traders, micro-businesses and SMEs between £5,000 and £20,000, at a grant rate of 70% of eligible project costs, to take an innovation from idea to market. It is delivered by Invest NI with Innovate NI, part-funded by the UK government, and it is open to businesses that are not already Invest NI clients.

That is a genuinely good scheme, and I would rather NI owners heard about it with four weeks to go than four days. But "70%" is doing a lot of work in the headline, and the guidance notes tell a more useful story than the press release does. This is not 70% off. It is 70% of an ex-VAT figure, paid to you after you have spent it, on a project you are forbidden from starting until the offer letter lands — and one of the pass/fail tests is whether you can afford to fund it in the first place. Read that sentence again and you will see why the finance side of this application matters as much as the innovation side.

The arithmetic, on real numbers

Work it from both ends. To get the minimum £5,000, your eligible project costs must total at least £7,143 excluding VAT — Invest NI states that figure in the guidance notes, so there is no guessing. To get the maximum £20,000, you need eligible costs of £28,571 ex VAT, of which you fund £8,571 yourself.

Now add the two things the 70% figure does not include. First, timing: grant money is not paid up front. You claim it once the activities have been carried out and paid for, with documentary evidence — for consultancy and sub-contracting, invoices have to state the work, the number of service days and the daily rate. Second, VAT: the eligible-cost figure is ex VAT.

Take an illustrative Mid-Ulster food producer — not a client, figures chosen to be easy to follow. Turnover £900,000, VAT registered, wants to develop and validate a new chilled retail line, and builds a £28,571 project to draw the full £20,000.

Eligible project costs, ex VAT: £28,571
VAT at 20%: £5,714 — recoverable, but out of the bank first
Cash out before a penny comes back: £34,285
Grant claimed on completion: £20,000
Net cost to the business: £8,571, plus several months of that cash sitting with suppliers

Same project, same grant, but the business is below the VAT threshold and not registered. Now the £5,714 of VAT is not recoverable — it is a real cost, and the grant does not cover it. Total spend £34,285, grant £20,000, net cost £14,285. That is an effective support rate of 58%, not 70%. Nobody has misled anybody; the guidance says ex VAT. But if you are unregistered and you budget at 70%, you will be £5,714 short, and you will find out at claim stage.

One more number worth having in your head before you scope the work: consultancy and sub-contracting costs are capped at £700 per day, and hotel or overnight accommodation at £300 per person per night. A project built mostly from consultancy days has to be at least 41 days at the cap to reach £28,571 — so if a supplier quote arrives at a day rate above £700, the excess is simply yours.

What this means for a Northern Ireland owner specifically

Three things are NI-only here, and they are the reason a GB-based adviser will not flag them.

You need a director resident in NI. The business must be based in Northern Ireland and have at least one director residing here, be a micro-business or SME, and be a registered business — Companies House or HMRC registration. Straightforward, but it catches NI operations of businesses run from elsewhere.

The subsidy rules split by what you sell. This is the Windsor Framework showing up in a grant form. Invest NI's guidance states that support awarded to goods-trading companies is treated as de minimis aid under Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/2831, while support to wholly service-based companies is treated as a subsidy under the UK Subsidy Control Act 2022 — and that mixed goods-and-services businesses are captured by Article 10(1) of the Windsor Framework too. It also notes that from 1 January 2026 all de minimis aid must be registered on an EU-wide public database. If you have taken other public support in the last three years, know the total before you sign. Our cross-border VAT guide covers the same goods-versus-services line in the tax system, and it trips people up in exactly the same way.

The farm gate is out — but not everything near it. Primary agricultural production is excluded: crops, animal production, forestry, logging, fisheries, aquaculture, and the on-farm activities needed to prepare a product for first sale. Given how much of the NI base sits in agri-food, that exclusion will end a lot of conversations early. It will also end some that should not end, because a processing or branded-product business is a different animal from primary production. If you are somewhere in between, read the definition properly rather than assuming.

Four things to do this week

Run the eligibility checker on Monday morning. It goes live on 10 August on the Innovate NI Business Innovation Grant page. Passing it is not an application — it is what gets you emailed a link to the form on the Invest NI Customer Portal. Do it on day one, because Invest NI reserves the right to close the call early depending on the volume of applications received.
Get your numbers out before you write a word of the form. Affordability is a pass/fail test, and the guidance asks for evidence such as financial accounts, a bank statement or a letter from your accountant. You will also need your most recent annual accounts including a profit and loss account and balance sheet, plus any recent management accounts. If those do not currently exist, that is this week's job — management accounts are exactly the thing being asked for.
Get supplier quotations now — and sign nothing. Quotes are part of the application. A signature, a deposit or a "just make a start" is not: costs incurred before you hold a grant Letter of Offer cannot be claimed, and the guidance warns it could cost you the support entirely.
Check what other public support you have had. You are ineligible if you are already an Invest NI client, or have had an offer or payment of Invest NI grant support in the last five years — with named exceptions including Covid-19 emergency support, the Digital Selling Capability Grant, the Economic Recovery Innovation Grant, Innovation Vouchers and Access to Finance. One application per group where ownership is the same.

What is still uncertain, and when you will know

Three things are genuinely open. The closing date may move. The stated deadline is 12 noon on 4 September, but Invest NI reserves the right to close the call earlier, or extend it, depending on volume. Treat 4 September as the outside edge, not the plan.

Passing is not getting. Applications are scored by an assessment panel and approved in rank order until the budget assigned to the call is fully allocated, and any offer is subject to Know Your Customer due diligence. A good application can score well and still land on the wrong side of the budget line. Outcomes are expected by the end of October 2026, sooner if you submit early.

The project window is tight. Activities should indicatively run from the start of October 2026 to the end of June 2027, with the actual dates confirmed in the Letter of Offer. Nine months, on a project you cannot begin until the paperwork arrives, is a real planning constraint — worth modelling in your cashflow now rather than in November.

Where we come into this

We do not write grant applications, and we would be wary of anyone charging you to — note that the scheme's own ineligible-cost list includes standard accountancy services, business plans and economic appraisals, so those are not fundable anyway. What we do is the part the form actually tests. Accounts and management accounts that stand up to an affordability check. A cashflow that shows whether you can carry £34,000 of spend for several months before the grant lands. A clear view of the tax treatment before you commit, not after. And a straight answer on which side of the goods-versus-services line your business sits.

If you are looking at this scheme and you are not certain your numbers are ready to be looked at, that is a half-hour conversation, not a project. Our Ballymena office covers the whole of Northern Ireland — from Cookstown and Dungannon to Derry/Londonderry and Newry — and our advisory team does this kind of groundwork as routine.