You wish to develop your company's internationalization

• Your company has a credible readiness to engage in continuous profitable export operations.
• You are starting export operations and wish to improve your company's readiness for internationalization.
• You are advancing the initiation of new export operations or the opening of a new market area.
• You wish to increase exports to your company's existing market areas.
• You wish to diversify the structure of exportation.
• You are promoting the entry of your company and innovations into the markets.
• You are promoting your company's international competitiveness.

You have made a decision to participate in a trade fair

• Your company is participating in an international B2B trade fair event abroad or virtually, and the participation incurs stand costs; the exception are events of the creative industries (the music industry and audiovisual industry).

Exhibition Explorer funding is intended for your company's participation in a trade fair and the costs arising from the trade fair stand.

The costs of a trade fair stand

• Registration and booking costs
• Floor area costs
• Design and decoration costs
• Technical orders such as electricity and cleaning
• Rented structures and furnishings
• The trade fair stand's construction costs (erection and dismantling)
• Round-trip freight costs for products presented at the trade fair. Mere outbound freight costs are not accepted, because in that case the financing can be considered to be related to the current costs of export operations.
• Any reasonable costs arising from the shared trade fair coaching customized for the group of enterprises. The coaching must help the enterprises to operate productively at the trade fair and to manage the tasks to be carried out after the trade fair. General coaching in sales and marketing is not funded.
• Any eligible costs of virtual participation at a trade fair, including the basic participation package, are reviewed case-specifically.

In the case of creative industries (such as the music and audiovisual industries), projects that do not involve fair stand costs may exceptionally be supported, but mainly in terms of registration, accommodation and travel costs.

Make sure that the criteria for the funding are met

• Your company is an SME or midcap enterprise registered in Finland, and has the corporate form of either a limited liability company (Oy), limited partnership (Ky), general partnership (Ay), or a cooperative. The funding cannot be granted to a one-person business, a foundation, association, public or non-profit organization, or a business registered in the Åland Islands.
• Your company's line of business is something other than primary agricultural production, fishing and aquaculture, or the further processing and trade engaged in by fisheries.
• Your company has not received any other public funding for the trade fair event in question.
• Your company is not part of an ongoing Young Innovative Company program funded by Business Finland (which may also include trade fair costs).
• Business Finland receiving an adequate number of funding applications for the same trade fair event from SMEs and midcap enterprises is a prerequisite for the funding.

Ensure sufficient self-financing

• Your company has adequate self-financing for the project and for covering the costs of the other business operations. The planning of self-financing should account for the fact that Business Finland's aid is paid in arrears against actualized and paid expenses.

Get the following financial matters in order

We cannot grant your company funding if:

• your company has not submitted financial statements to the Finnish Patent and Registration Office, or your company's financial statements have not been audited in accordance with the Auditing Act
• your company is not in the prepayment register
• your company's credit rating (Rating Alfa) according to Suomen Asiakastieto is below A
• your company has tax debts for which a payment plan has not been agreed on with the tax authorities
• your company has arrears, payment defaults or other outstanding financial obligations related to previous loans granted by Tekes or Business Finland.

Check de minimis funding

Exhibition Explorer funding is de minimis aid which does not need to be repaid. Your company can receive a maximum of EUR 200,000 in de minimis aid during the current and previous two tax years. All companies controlled by the same entity or belonging to the same group of companies are deemed a single company when calculating the de minimis accumulation.

At the application stage, your company must find out how much de minimis funding it has received during the aforementioned period considered. Such aid is granted by a range of public organizations, such as Finnvera and the ELY Centers.

Read more about de minimis funding

Read more about the funding terms and conditions

The funding terms and conditions describe the costs for which Business Finland can provide funding, how we monitor your project costs, and how you should report on the progress of your project.

Read more about the funding terms and conditions

The application can be submitted in Business Finland's online service as soon as the decision on the participation is made and an estimate on the trade fair purchased services is ready, but, in any case, it should be submitted no later than on the day preceding the trade fair.

If it is a project in the creative industries (music industry, audiovisual sector), the application must be submitted before traveling to the fair.

Each enterprise submits its own application in the online service. We will start processing the applications once we have received at least four applications for the same trade fair event. If your company does not have any audited financial statements yet, please submit, along with your application, an income statement that is no more than two months old, and a balance sheet ledger for the current accounting period. To make the funding decision, we may ask your company for additional information.

You can also keep track of the processing of your application in the online service.

Go to the online service

Fill in the application

When you apply for the funding, select the official name of the trade fair event as the project name of your application and complete the application in accordance with the instructions provided.

Duration of the project

The costs must be incurred during the duration of the project. With the exception of registration and booking costs, costs are accepted from the day you send us your application at the earliest. For this reason, it is recommended that the starting date of the project is the date of submission of the application.

Note:

• in projects that include freight costs, the return freight must be received in Finland during the duration of the project.
• in projects in the creative industries (music industry, audiovisual sector), travel days must be included in the duration of the project.

Define your goals

Define 2–5 goals for the participation at the trade fair of which at least one is measurable. The goals will become part of the potential funding decision and Business Finland monitors their achievement. Examples of goals:

• the company met x potential new customers at the trade fair
• the company met x potential resellers at the trade fair
• the company identified x new potential partners or R&D partners at the trade fair.

Describe the implementation

Answer all of the questions included in the application's Implementation section.

Itemize the eligible costs of the purchased services

Costs are accepted starting from the date on which the application was submitted, at earliest. We employ a simple cost estimate in Exhibition Explorer funding. Registration and booking costs may nevertheless by accepted, even if they arose prior to the submission of the application for funding.

Itemize the costs of the purchased services (itemization of purchased services: what was bought and from whom, and a euro-denominated estimate/value [0% VAT]). Purchases from companies of interest are not permitted.

Enter the costs of the purchased services in the cost estimate as follows:

• Purchased services: Enter solely the eligible costs of the purchased services and freight arising from the trade fair stand (found in the section "What can the funding be used for?").
• Other costs: Enter the computed (i.e., "flat rate") 20% proportion of the purchased services.
• Salaries in money and indirect personnel costs: Leave this empty.

If you are participating in a trade fair event of the creative industries (music industry or audiovisual industry) in which your company does not have a trade fair stand, enter the sum total of the participation/registration, travel and accommodation costs in the space for the project's purchased services. In this case, leave the space for Other costs empty.

Costs for purchased services added to the project after the funding decision cannot be accepted. The amount of aid mentioned in the decision is the maximum aid granted to your company. You can specify the estimate on the costs of the purchased services during the application's processing phase.

Other costs

Other costs incurred by your company from the trade fair participation can be approved based on a flat rate, which is at maximum 20% of the sum of the aforementioned purchased services. These costs may include:

• travel, accommodation, and interpretation costs
• the expenses of a possible consultant/administrator
• marketing costs related to the trade fair, including promotional videos, brochures, calling cards, and roll-ups.

Other costs do not need to be itemized in the application, nor do they need to be included in the project accounting.
For example: If the estimate concerning the costs of the trade fair stand is EUR 10,000, other costs account for 20%, or EUR 2,000, of that. SMEs account for 50% (or EUR 6,000) and midcap enterprises for 40% (or EUR 4,800) of an aid sum of EUR 12,000.