Cost of living: Support and advice for small businesses

There is a range of support from organisations and schemes to support businesses in Northern Ireland.

Invest Northern Ireland

Invest NI offers support to businesses across a variety of areas. The support is tailored to individual business needs and includes funding, advice, training, and mentoring opportunities.

Key areas include:

• Start a business
• Operate more efficiently
• Improve skills
• Develop products and services
• Find new markets
• Find funding
• Develop strategy
• Claims

Find out more about support from Invest Northern Ireland.

nibusinessinfo.co.uk

nibusinessinfo.co.uk provides practical advice and guidance for businesses in Northern Ireland.

You can search our Northern Ireland Business Support Finder to find publicly funded sources of assistance. Support may be available in a number of forms, including financial assistance and free or subsidised advice services. Search the Northern Ireland business support finder.

Other key guidance includes:

• Grants: the basics
• Innovation, research and development grants
• Bank finance
• Non-bank finance
• Shares and equity finance
• Credit checking your customers and setting credit limits
• Business debt: help and advice
• Debt recovery
• Managing financial difficulty
• Redundancy, restructures and change
• Ten simple energy-saving tips for your business
• Save money by using energy more efficiently
• Saving energy and cutting costs

Other support includes:

• a number of business rate reliefs are available to assist Northern Ireland ratepayers
• tax reliefs and allowances from HMRC if you run a business, employ people or are self-employed
• employer expenses and benefits that offer access to exemptions and allowances 
• if you cannot pay your tax bill in full, you may be eligible to set up a payment plan to pay it in installments through the HMRC Time to Pay service

Help and advice for managing debt

Many businesses run into problems or financial difficulties, and it can be a stressful position to be in, but there are dedicated organisations that can help.

Consumer Council

The Consumer Council provides advice for small and micro-businesses in Northern Ireland.

Areas that the Consumer Council can help businesses with include energy bills, water bills, postal services, and support with complaints.

Read more on Consumer Council support.

Debt advice services

Debt advice services are secure, and you can get immediate, personalised help. Some services are available 24 hours a day.

Organisations include:

• Advice NI Business Debt Service
• PayPlan
• StepChange Debt Charity