Local Enterprise Office grants: what each one pays, and who is left out

The three cash grants, and the catch

Most people looking for a Local Enterprise Office grant, or LEO grant, have one of three schemes in mind. Each pays about half the cost of a project.

The catch is the kind of business. The national rules say priority must go to businesses "in the manufacturing or internationally traded services sectors which over time can develop into strong export entities". The business must also have no more than 10 employees, though an office can make exceptions.

If your business does fit, start with the grant for testing an idea before you commit if you are still researching, the start-up grant for the first 18 months if you have begun trading, or the growth grant for businesses past 18 months.

Some offices set a lower ceiling than the national one, such as €50,000 in Dublin City and Cork City.

In 2025 the offices approved 186 Priming Grants, 340 Business Expansion Grants and 274 Feasibility Study Grants, worth €19.3 million between them. In the same year 715 businesses were approved for an Energy Efficiency Grant, which is more than got a Priming Grant and a Business Expansion Grant put together.

Who is excluded

The official eligibility page is blunt. The grant aid "does not support" retail, personal services such as hairdressers, gardeners and creches, professional services such as accountants and solicitors, or construction and local building services.

Two reasons are given. Deadweight means the project would have gone ahead anyway. Displacement means a grant to one business would only take trade from another one nearby.

Individual offices spell it out. Dublin City and Cork City both list builders, hairdressers, cafes, pubs, hotels, general printers, construction and trades as examples. Galway's list also names primary agriculture and "other local services that duplicate existing local businesses".

Also excluded:

• clients of Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland or Údarás na Gaeltachta
• businesses that mainly import and distribute goods
• projects that could go ahead without the grant
• gambling, adult entertainment, tobacco, and cannabis products that are not authorised medicines
• vehicles, laptops and other mobile assets, whatever the business

There is one narrow exception. A tourism business that is unique and earns most of its money from overseas visitors may be offered help with salaries.

What a shop, cafe, trade or local service can get

These supports do not have the export rule. They are open to small businesses with between 1 and 50 employees, in almost any sector.

Two of them pay money. The software voucher worth up to €5,000 covers half the cost of new systems such as online booking, stock control or accounts. The 75% grant for energy-saving equipment covers things like fridges, ovens, meters and controls.

Farms, fishing and fish farming are excluded from these as well, along with gambling, adult entertainment and tobacco.

Mentoring is not always free. Dublin City charges an administration fee for its three-hour and six-hour mentoring blocks, and runs a free group advice clinic every week.

The offices also help with loan applications to Microfinance Ireland, which lends €2,000 to €50,000 to businesses with fewer than 10 staff. An application that goes through the office gets a discount on the interest rate. In 2025 the offices helped with 608 of these applications and 281 were approved.

Your council may run schemes of its own. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, for example, has a shop front scheme and a rates-based grant for taking on a unit that has been empty for more than six months.

Other grants for businesses that make things or export

These sit beside the three cash grants and carry the same sector rule.

Market Explorer Grant. This helps a first-time or small exporter research a new market. It pays 50% of the cost, up to €10,000, towards market research, consultants in the market, trade fairs, and travel and subsistence abroad. It is for businesses with 1 to 50 employees that have traded for at least 12 months and can show they intend to export. It does not cover research into the Irish market, or direct sales and marketing. A business can apply up to three times over 18 months.

It replaced the Technical Assistance for Micro Exporters grant, which paid up to €2,500, in January 2025. The offices approved 152 Market Explorer Grants in 2025, worth about €1 million.

• GradStart. Half of a graduate's salary, up to €15,000 a year for two years, for companies with at least five full-time staff.
• GreenStart. A grant towards up to seven days of environmental consultancy.
• IP Start. 80% of the cost of advice on patents, trade marks and designs, up to €2,160.
• Research, development and innovation funding. Paid through Enterprise Ireland. Sole traders cannot apply.
• Lean for Business. Up to 90% of the cost of a consultant who helps you cut waste. The official pages disagree on who can apply: one says any small business with 1 to 50 employees, another limits it to sectors that can export. Ask your office.

How an application works

1. Contact the office for the area where the business is based. Each office only deals with businesses in its own area. The official office finder lists all 31.
2. Talk to a business adviser before anything else. In Wicklow you must meet an adviser before you are given a form. In Dublin City you fill in an online eligibility assessment first, and the office replies within 10 working days.
3. Do not spend anything yet. Costs you take on before the application is in are not covered, and can make the whole project ineligible.
4. Fill in the application. Some offices use an online portal and others use PDF forms. Wicklow's Priming Grant form runs to 28 pages, and it comes with financial projections, quotes and accounts.
5. The office's Evaluation and Approvals Committee decides. It meets on fixed dates: about six times a year in Wicklow, and about every two months in Kerry.
6. If you are approved, you pay for the work first and claim the grant back with invoices and proof of payment. You need a current tax clearance certificate to be paid.

If you are refused

For Feasibility, Priming and Business Expansion Grants, the office must write to you with the reasons within seven working days of the committee meeting. You then have four working weeks to appeal in writing through the office.

The appeal goes to a National Appeals Panel chaired by an Enterprise Ireland regional director. Nobody involved in the first decision can sit on it. The panel aims to review an appeal within two months, and its decision is final.

Common questions

Find your own office

• Local Enterprise Office Carlow
• Local Enterprise Office Cavan
• Local Enterprise Office Clare
• Local Enterprise Office Cork
• Local Enterprise Office Donegal
• Local Enterprise Office Dublin
• Local Enterprise Office Galway
• Local Enterprise Office Kerry
• Local Enterprise Office Kildare
• Local Enterprise Office Kilkenny
• Local Enterprise Office Laois
• Local Enterprise Office Leitrim
• Local Enterprise Office Limerick
• Local Enterprise Office Longford
• Local Enterprise Office Louth
• Local Enterprise Office Mayo
• Local Enterprise Office Meath
• Local Enterprise Office Monaghan
• Local Enterprise Office Offaly
• Local Enterprise Office Roscommon
• Local Enterprise Office Sligo
• Local Enterprise Office Tipperary
• Local Enterprise Office Waterford
• Local Enterprise Office Westmeath
• Local Enterprise Office Wexford
• Local Enterprise Office Wicklow

Keep reading

• every government grant for small firms, not only the local office ones
• the loan form the enterprise offices help you complete
• the approval figures for loans the offices helped with
• what the 28-page start-up grant form asks