- Guide 1 of 5
- Export Market Development Grants Act 1997 and Rules 2021
- Checked 10 October 2026
Export Market Development Grants: the tiers, the cap and the rules behind them
An Export Market Development Grant is matched funding that the CEO of Austrade may give an Australian small or medium enterprise, or a representative body, for export marketing and promotion or export training. On 10 October 2026 Austrade’s page says no grant round is open, so this guide sets out the rules in the Act and the Rules, and the amounts Austrade has published, as information only.
General information only, not financial or tax advice, and no grant is promised. The official place to check is Austrade’s EMDG page.
Where the program stands
No round is open. Austrade’s EMDG page, read on 10 October 2026, says “Applications are closed for Round 4 of EMDG” and “Currently there are no grant rounds open to applications.” business.gov.au’s EMDG page agrees: “This grant is currently closed to applications.”
Austrade lists the Export Market Development Grants Rules 2021 as the rules for Round 4 and future rounds. This guide reads them as compiled on 16 March 2024, and the Act as compiled on 14 October 2024.
Who the law lets apply
The Act’s own outline puts it this way: “To be eligible for a grant, a person must be Australian, and (in most cases) be ready to export, or already exporting, products of substantially Australian origin. The person must also meet any other conditions specified in rules made by the Minister.”
For an applicant that is not a representative body, section 10(2) of the Rules sets those conditions. All eight, tested when the person applies:
- if the CEO has decided that only some categories of agreement may be entered into at that time, the agreement is one of them;
- a “high-quality plan” for marketing or promoting eligible products in a foreign country, “unique to and tailored to the person’s business”;
- the capacity to spend $20,000 on that marketing or promotion in the foreign country, or a higher amount the CEO decides for the category and time;
- if the CEO has limited a category to particular markets, an intention to market or promote in one of them;
- a business providing those products under an ABN, run under the same ABN for at least 2 years, or a higher number of years the CEO decides;
- turnover for the financial year before the year of application “less than $20,000,000 but more than” $100,000, or a higher amount the CEO decides;
- the person is fit to receive a grant (section 13);
- the new agreement would not take the person past these limits: more than 2 years of tier 1 agreements in total, 4 years of tier 2, 4 years of tier 3, 8 years of agreements of any category, or grants paid for a period longer than 8 years.
Three tiers, and the amounts Austrade publishes
Section 49 of the Rules sorts each agreement by the grantee’s position when it is signed. Tier 1 is for a grantee ready to export eligible products. Tier 2 is for one already exporting and seeking to expand export promotion activity, where the agreement is not tier 3. Tier 3 is for an exporter whose agreement “includes a requirement that the grantee make a strategic shift in the marketing of eligible products in a foreign country.” An agreement with a representative body is a representative agreement.
| Tier | Austrade’s description | Amount per financial year |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | Businesses ready to export | $20,000 up to $30,000 |
| Tier 2 | Businesses exporting within existing markets | $20,000 up to $50,000 |
| Tier 3 | Businesses exporting to new key markets | $20,000 up to $80,000 |
| Representative bodies | Bodies that support members to achieve export success | Up to $50,000 |
These amounts come from Austrade’s eligibility page, not from the Rules, and each belongs to its tier and those two financial years.
How a grant is worked out
The Act’s outline sets the matching rule: “A grantee must spend the grant money, as well as at least a matching amount of their own money, on eligible expenses in relation to eligible products.” The Rules then fix the arithmetic.
“Subject to subsection (3), the total amount of the instalments payable under the agreement in respect of a financial year is half of the total amount of the grantee’s agreed eligible expenses in relation to eligible products for the financial year.”
Export Market Development Grants Rules 2021, s 53(2)
Subsection (3) reduces an instalment as needed for two things. One is the lifetime limit. The other is section 54: if the grantee spends less than agreed, the remaining instalments shrink so the grant does not exceed half of what was actually spent on eligible expenses.
Section 48 sets the outer limits. An agreement “must not be for a period longer than 2 years.” Its grant, “together with any earlier grants paid to the grantee,” must not exceed $770,000; that limit does not apply to a representative body.
What counts: products and expenses
Austrade says an eligible product “must be of substantially Australian origin and be” goods, services, events, intellectual property or know-how, or software. Its list of expense categories, in full:
- keeping a representative in a foreign country;
- short trips abroad specifically for export promotion;
- a consultant doing research or promotional work;
- short trips within Australia specifically to meet foreign buyers, but not general industry events or networking where no foreign buyers are present;
- visits by foreign buyers;
- soliciting for business in a foreign country;
- free samples for potential foreign buyers;
- promotional and advertising material made specifically for international export promotion;
- intellectual property rights;
- export training, for a Tier 1 applicant;
- delivering or arranging approved export training, for a representative body.
The law also excludes some expenses. Among them: an expense covered by another Commonwealth, state or territory assistance scheme; promotion of a product whose sale or export would break an Australian law ; capital expenses, though intellectual property registration abroad is treated as not capital; trade with New Zealand; taxes and levies, except the passenger movement charge; soliciting sponsorship for an event; and anything the CEO thinks might damage Australia’s trade reputation. The Rules hold the rest of the list.
When a decision goes against an applicant
A person affected by a reviewable decision may ask the CEO of Austrade to reconsider it, by written notice received within 30 days after first receiving notice of the decision, or within a further period the CEO allows. A decision the CEO confirms or varies can then go to the Administrative Review Tribunal.