CEBA (Canada Emergency Business Account)
Please note that the deadline to submit an enrollment request form under the CEBA program is August 31, 2020.
If your total employment income paid in the 2019 calendar year was greater than $20,000 and less than $1,500,000 you need to submit an enrollment request form by contacting your bank.
To qualify under the expanded eligibility criteria, applicants with payroll lower than $20,000 would need:
- a business operating account at a participating financial institution
- a Canada Revenue Agency business number, and to have filed a 2018 or 2019 tax return
- eligible non-deferrable expenses between $40,000 and $1.5 million. Eligible non-deferrable expenses could include costs such as rent, property taxes, utilities, and insurance.
Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance (CECRA)
New applicants have the choice of applying for the three-month initial period or four months, but need to do so by August 31, 2020.
The CECRA will be available to eligible small businesses, meaning small business tenants that pay less than $50,000 per month in rent, that have temporarily ceased operations or experienced a 70% drop in pre-COVID-19 revenues, and which rent their commercial space.
The CECRA will provide forgivable loans to qualifying, commercial property owners to cover 50% of the rent otherwise payable by eligible small businesses during April, May, June and July. These loans will be forgiven, if the owners agree to reduce their tenants’ rent by at least 75% for the four months. The CECRA requires that the rent forgiveness agreements include the following terms:
- the tenant will be responsible for paying 25% of its monthly rent;
- the owner will be responsible for covering 25% of the monthly rent that would otherwise be paid to it; and
- the federal government and provinces will share responsibility for the remaining 50% by way of a forgivable loan.
The rent forgiveness agreement must also include a term not to evict the tenant while the agreement applies.
