The new Rent Refund Scheme for businesses and self-employed will see businesses benefitting between €2,500 and €7,500 depending on the size of their company, Economy Minister Silvio Schembri said. 

This is one of the schemes that was mentioned in the June ‘mini-budget’ set to aid businesses to recover from the wounds that COVID-19 left them with. 

Two other main schemes that were implemented in this regard were the Wage Supplement Scheme and the government vouchers, which have now been extended to October from September, and also the recently announced Electricity Bill Refund Scheme. 

“We are seeing that in a time of difficulty we have to pull our weight to help businesses especially small ones like the self-employed which are the backbone of our economy. Someone who has spent its own money to build a business on their own to care for a family might be feeling scared at the moment and this is what these schemes address,” Schembri said during a press conference on Wednesday morning where the Rent Refund Scheme was announced. 

He explained that the government is allocating €45 million that will be helping 16,000 and businesses and self-employed who have a small work force. 

Notably, there is no deadline as to when businesses and self-employed can benefit from this scheme. The limit set on the scheme is set in relation to the sum of funds that are allocated, which can vary from €2,500 and €7,500 depending on the workforce. 

The scaling demographic of the maximum amount of funds one can get is as follows: someone who has one establishment and has 1 to 9 employees gets a maximum of €2,500 while someone who has two rental agreements and 10 to 19 employees gets €4,000. Those who have three rental agreements and 20 to 29 employees get €5,500 while those with four rental agreements and 30 to 39 employees get €7,000. Finally, anyone with five or more rental agreements with 40 or over employees will get €7,500. 

This scheme applies for those who rent a place for their business, not for those who own an establishment of their own. In fact, in order to be eligible one must present the rental agreement contract. 

Intercompany rentals (when a company rents a place to a group within the company itself) this does not apply to this scheme either as that is something being done within the company, but private entities who rent are eligible. 

Alongside the rental agreement, one must also provide proof of the last rent payment and a statement on whether the business is in difficulty or not. There is also another form that one has to fill in; a declaration of the benefits used by the businesses throughout this pandemic. 

Those who are eligible to the wage supplement are automatically eligible for this scheme and Malta Enterprise will be issuing emails to anyone registered under the wage supplement scheme on 9 September. The Enterprise will then manually assess these required documents through a specified team to decipher the amount that each person is eligible for. 

Schembri pointed out that the process should be much quicker and efficient since the Malta Enterprise already has most of account details of businesses already due to the previous schemes.