The sensible questions, answered.

A grant, no: that is what separates it from a loan, and it is why grants are competitive. Two things to watch. Most carry conditions - spend it on what you said, stay trading for a set period, report on what happened - and breaking them can mean paying it back. And a great deal of what gets called a grant is not one: loans, tax reliefs, in-kind support and equity are all commonly listed alongside grants, so check what you are actually being offered. Every scheme here is labelled with its type.

Usually yes. A grant that supports your trade is normally treated as taxable trading income, so it goes into your accounts and is subject to corporation tax or income tax like any other receipt. Some specific schemes are exempt, and a grant toward a capital asset is often treated differently again. HMRC publishes the rules and your accountant can tell you how a particular award should be handled - this is not tax advice, and the answer genuinely does depend on the scheme.

It depends on four things more than anything else: where your business is registered, how big it is, what sector you are in, and what you intend to spend the money on. Most schemes are restricted on at least one of those, and the restriction is usually published. That is the whole job of this site: you enter your company number, and we check your business against each scheme's published criteria and show the funder's own sentence behind every yes and every no.

Real, competitive, and more local than most people expect. The large national schemes are heavily subscribed, but a large share of UK business funding comes from individual councils, devolved governments, sector bodies and charitable funders - and those go unclaimed far more often, because no single place lists them. The harder problem is not winning one, it is finding the ones you can apply for at all.

Directly with the funder, always. Find the scheme, read its published criteria, and use the application route on its own page. Never pay an agency a fee to tell you which grants exist, and be wary of anyone who guarantees an award - no legitimate funder works that way. We link to the funder's own page for every scheme and we never apply on your behalf.

Not in the way the phrase suggests. Start-up grants exist, but there are fewer than the internet implies, most are small, many are restricted to a particular area or sector, and a lot require match funding - you put in a proportion and the grant covers the rest. Start-up loans, tax reliefs and in-kind support such as free advice and equipment are often easier to get and worth more in practice.

That changes constantly, which is why this is a live list rather than an article with a year in the title. Deadlines are re-checked daily, schemes that have closed are marked closed rather than quietly deleted, and anything that reopens comes back. A list of grants written last January is mostly wrong by now, and there is no way to tell which parts.

No. We show you what you match, why, and the funder's page. You apply directly and keep everything you win.

Published criteria on official sources. Every rule is stored with the sentence it came from, so you can check our working against the funder's own page.

It is public information on the Companies House register. We use it to read your public record so you do not retype it, and we never share it with funders.

Deadlines are checked daily. Where a scheme has closed we say so rather than hiding it, because many reopen.

Seeing what your business matches is free. There is no card and no sign-up to get your first list.

Either we still need an answer from you, or the funder published no test we could check. We would rather say we have not checked something than imply we have.

No, and that matters. Loans, tax reliefs, in-kind support, equity and guarantees are all included and clearly labelled. A relief you can claim this year is often worth more than a competition you will not win.