Export aid action plan

• Merchants eligible to receive aid according to the quality criteria (have scored at least 9 points). Check in the Self-Check Calculator.
• Associations of at least five merchants
• Foundations, where the founders and members include at least five merchants
• Cooperative societies of at least three merchants (not applying to apartment owner cooperative societies, car garage owner cooperative societies, boat garage owner cooperative societies and horticultural cooperative societies)
• Farms or fisheries eligible to receive aid according to the quality criteria (have scored at least 9 points)
• Start-ups or merchants receiving aid within the European-level projects. Read more in the explanation.

(!) All beneficiaries:

• must correspond to the status of micro, small and medium-sized entities engaged in economic activity (commercial enterprises) in accordance with Annex 1 to Commission Regulation (EU) No. 651/2014 of 17 June 2014 More information in the section Useful websites
• have no tax debts exceeding EUR 100
• have concluded at least one financial year, as the aid amount is set at a maximum of 30% of the net turnover of the last closed year.
• if the beneficiary has both a Business Incubation Aid Contract and an Export Aid Umbrella Contract concluded with LIAA at the same time, the beneficiary is not eligible for aid under the Export Aid Action Plan. 

Amount and intensity of aid

The amount of financial aid available to an enterprise for export aid actions during one calendar year may be up to EUR 40 000, not exceeding 30% of the net turnover for the last closed year. Aid is granted in the amount of 60% of eligible costs

​​​​​The rules of the tender are set out in Cabinet Regulation No. 407

Export aid action plan – table of activities and types of costs

Important!

In order to justify the choice of service provider and the price of the service provided, it is necessary to conduct a price survey and document it for all eligible activities when purchasing a service, including certification services.

When conducting a price survey:

• for amounts up to EUR 70 000 (excluding VAT), at least 3 offers submitted electronically (by e-mail or electronically signed documents) must be evaluated.
• from EUR 70 000 (excluding VAT), a procurement procedure must be carried out in accordance with the conditions specified in Chapter IV of Cabinet Regulation No. 104 (likumi.lv).

Recommendations for conducting price surveys (market research) can be found on the website of the Procurement Monitoring Bureau (PMB)

Exceptional cases

In a situation where there are indeed no other potential service providers on the market who would be able to provide a specific service, please prepare and attach to the application annex a market research document prepared by the applicant. It should describe in detail all the activities that the applicant has carried out to conduct a preliminary study of the contract price, including:

• the specific nature of the service;
• all offers considered;
• the service providers surveyed and their proposed contract prices.

Within the scope of eligible activities, transactions with related parties are not permitted, i.e., relationships between the beneficiary, its participants, shareholders, members, board or council members, any of their relatives up to the second degree of kinship, spouses or relatives up to the first degree of kinship, as well as the beneficiary’s procurator or commercial representative, on the one hand, and the supplier, its subcontractors, as well as any of their participants, shareholders, members, board or council members, procurators or commercial representatives, on the other hand. This relationship exists even if the participants, shareholders and members are both natural and legal persons.

Industries and activities excluded from aid:

• Trade industry NACE Rev. 2.1 Section G “Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles”
• Financial intermediation industry NACE Rev. 2.1 Section L “Financial and insurance activities”, except for financial technology enterprises, i.e. enterprises that develop new business models, implement innovations, create new financial products and services, and improve service delivery methods and business models
• Commercial services industry NACE Rev. 2.1 Section M “Real estate activities” and Section 77 “Rental and leasing activities”
• Gambling industry NACE Rev. 2.1 Section S “Arts, entertainment and recreation” Group 92 “Gambling and betting activities”
• Tobacco product manufacturing industry NACE Rev. 2.1 Section C “Manufacturing” Group 12 “Manufacture of tobacco products”
• Primary production of agricultural products, fishing and aquaculture industry NACE Rev. 2.1 Section A “Agriculture, forestry and fishing”

Detailed description of steps

1. The export aid action plan must be submitted via the business.gov.lv e-service. Please note that before submitting the export aid plan, you must:

• familiarise yourself with the evaluation criteria and ensure that you have obtained the minimum number of points (9). The criteria are available in the section Quality criteria
• know the specific activities, their costs, and, in the case of outsourcing, price surveys must be conducted. Planned costs and supporting documentation must be attached to the plan.

Submission of an export aid action plan

Only activities that have been started or will be started and implemented in the specific year may be included in the export aid action plan. 

This means that if the first activity included in the plan takes place from 3 to 6 February 2025, the first plan for 2025 must be submitted no later than 6 February 2025. Each beneficiary may submit two plans during a calendar year. 
 2. LIAA evaluates the export aid action plan and makes a decision

• upon the first evaluation of the export aid action plan, an aid (umbrella) agreement is concluded with LIAA
• After the export aid action plan has been approved, the planned actions are implemented

3. Payment requests are submitted via business.gov.lv – they can be submitted for one or more completed eligible activities, but no later than by 31 March of the following calendar year

All activities planned for 2025 must be completed by the time the payment request is submitted, and the payment request must be submitted no later than by 31 March 2026. 

4. LIAA evaluates the submitted payment request and the accompanying deliverables 

5. Payment of financial aid.

Important!

• 2 export aid action plans may be submitted per calendar year.
• The export aid action plan may include activities for which costs have been incurred since 19 July 2023.
• If the export aid action plan was submitted to LIAA for activities in 2023, it could include activities that started on or after 5 September 2023.
• Starting from 2024, only activities that have been started and/or planned and will be implemented in the specific year for which the export action plan is submitted may be included in the export aid action plan.
• 2026 is the last calendar year for the submission and implementation of the export action plan, provided that no additional funding is allocated for export aid in the Cabinet Regulations.
• When submitting an export aid action plan, the planned costs of each supported action must be substantiated with supporting documentation, such as a price survey already carried out, previous experience – exhibition costs for the previous year, other simplified costs, confirmation of the absence of a conflict of interest with the service provider or supplier, etc.

• Guide to completing the Export Aid Action Plan application (PDF)
• Procedures for evaluation and aid (PDF)

To assess your eligibility for aid, please fill out this self-check calculator.

The calculator is for informational purposes only, and whether the applicant qualifies for aid will only be fully evaluated after the plan has been submitted and evaluated.

Important!

• To qualify for aid, the minimum number of points is 9
• The Eurostat classification (LAT, ENG) is to be used in the evaluation
• For the calculator criteria “Taxes paid to the state budget in the last closed financial year (EUR)”, use the information provided in the State Revenue Service (SRS) Public Database. However, if the total tax amount is negative (overpayment), the report on taxes calculated (declared) for the taxation year from the SRS EDS for the last closed financial year is used.
  The report from the SRS EDS in XML format can be obtained in the section “Payments” – “Payment status” in the subsection “Summary of the reporting period – comparison”.
• The Research & Development component will be assessed in the beneficiary’s last closed annual report. In accordance with Annex 1 “Layout of the Balance Sheet” of the Law on Annual Statements and Consolidated Annual Statements, research and development costs are reflected on the assets side of the balance sheet under Section I Intangible Investments, Section 1, “Development Costs”, and research and development costs may be explained in the notes to the Financial Statements. If there is no reference to the Research & Development component anywhere in the annual report, 0 points will be awarded.

Quality criteria

Quality criteria are assessed based on data from the last closed financial year. These quality criteria apply to all applicants, except associations, foundations, cooperatives, start-ups, and merchants who receive aid for European-level projects, however, the amount of aid granted to these applicants also does not exceed 30% of their net turnover for the last closed year.

• Net turnover of the beneficiary in the industry receiving aid (up to 5 points)
• Breakdown of industries by technology/knowledge-intensity, Eurostat classification (up to 4 points)
• Number of employees of the beneficiary (up to 4 points)
• Taxes paid by the beneficiary to the state budget (up to 6 points)
• Research & Development component – (up to 2 points)

Export aid contract template (PDF)

After concluding an export aid contract, the beneficiary must submit an initial enterprise data questionnaire (available to legal entities) via the business.gov.lv e-service

• must be submitted for one or more activities that have taken place, but no later than by 31 March of the following calendar year;
• it must be in accordance with the cost items and aid amounts specified in the approved export aid action plan;
• must be submitted together with documents confirming the results achieved;
  • Informative material on supporting documentation to be submitted together with the payment request (XLSX);
• must be submitted via the business.gov.lv system; a template is available in PDF format.

Supporting documentation for costs do not need to be submitted to LIAA, but they must be stored and made available if necessary.

Bank account – the existing bank account of the enterprise (beneficiary) may be used to make payments related to the implementation of the project (no new bank account needs to be opened).

Accounting records – the accounting plan must include accounts and/or sub-accounts (expenses and revenues) related to the implementation of the project, the names of which are identifiable in the contract concluded with the agency.

Beneficiaries are encouraged to inform the public about the aid received from the European Regional Development Fund.

Most often, the information on received aid is published on the merchant’s website or social networks. This can be done in various ways, observing the following principles:

• Publish brief information about participation in the export aid action plan project, the objectives achieved, and the results;
• Textual reference to the European Regional Development Fund;
• The logo set of the European Regional Development Fund and the National Development Plan must also be visible on the opening page. It can be included in the publication either as a separate image or integrated into the visual materials of the text
• If the post is published on social media, in addition to the above points, the hashtags #ESfondi and #EUFunds (depending on the language of the post) must also be included.

European Regional Development Fund and National Development Plan logo set

• The mandatory logo set includes the following texts: Co-financed by the European Union and the National Development Plan. The NDP and EU logos can be downloaded here (JPG)
• The logo must be used in accordance with the logo reproduction conditions set out in the EU Funds 2021-2027 and the Recovery and Resilience Facility Communication and Design Guidelines (see pp. 29-37)  

The programme rules are set out in Cabinet Regulation No. 407 European Union Cohesion Policy Programme 2021-2027 1.2.3. Specific aid objective “Promoting sustainable growth, competitiveness and job creation in SMEs, including through productive investments” 1.2.3.1. implementation rules for the measure “Aid for the development of innovative entrepreneurship in SMEs” (likumi.lv)