Export Market Development Grants (EMDG)

EMDG is a key Australian Government financial assistance program for Australian exporters. Each year, it helps Australian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) start or expand their export business. This grant program contributes to Austrade’s Budget Portfolio Outcome 1.

The program is designed to bring benefits to Australia by encouraging the creation, development, expansion and diversification of foreign markets for Australian products. This is done by providing targeted financial assistance for promotional activities and the development of marketing skills to Australian SMEs and their representative organisations.

The intended outcome is increased export promotion for eligible products in foreign markets by EMDG recipients.

The principles underpinning EMDG are:

• Help is focused on export market development and promotion.
• Grantees must spend at least an equal amount of their own money on eligible expenses (i.e., you must spend double the grant amount).
• The EMDG grant is an eligibility-based grant. All applicants who are eligible will be offered a grant agreement.
• SMEs have access to grants up to a total of 8 years, reflecting the time it takes to build a presence in the market.
• A wide range of expenditure is eligible, reflecting how businesses approach markets in different ways.

The grant amount an applicant receives depends on the number of eligible applications in the grant round (referred to as demand), and the available program budget to be shared amongst all eligible applicants. Grants are therefore not based on the maximum grant tier caps.