Small business grants in the UK open now: how to find this month's calls

Small business grants in the UK fall into two groups: hundreds of small rolling vouchers and local grants worth a few hundred to a few thousand pounds, and a smaller set of competitive innovation and sector programmes worth £50,000 upwards. On 26 October 2026 OpenGrant listed 525 open, rolling and forthcoming schemes for small businesses and startups from 74 funders, 32 of them closing within 30 days. This guide shows how to find this month's calls and how to tell which group a scheme belongs to.

The funding picture for small businesses

The small businesses and startups page showed 516 schemes open now, 9 forthcoming and 430 accepting rolling applications on 26 October 2026. Of the 454 with a stated maximum award, 355 were under £10,000, 25 between £10,000 and £100,000 and 74 of £100,000 or more, and the median stated maximum was £429. Those numbers describe the market accurately: the long tail of vouchers, chargepoint grants and local enterprise funds is where most schemes are, and the money is concentrated in a few dozen programmes at the top.

Business grants also behave differently from charity grants. Many are contracts or part-funded awards: Innovate UK pays a percentage of eligible project costs at an "intervention rate" rather than the whole cost, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships require the business to contribute, and some sector programmes are cohort entry rather than cash. The business grants guide explains the main types; this one is about what is open now.

Innovate UK and UKRI competitions

Innovate UK had 46 open or forthcoming schemes on OpenGrant on 26 October 2026, and its own Innovation Funding Service listed 29 live competitions. The ones with November deadlines, all closing at 11am, included:

• FOAK Builder: Programme Entry Expression of Interest: support worth up to £315,000 to develop a climate tech first-of-a-kind project, single applicants, SMEs, closes 5 November 2026.
• Frontier AI: SME Champions, Phase 1: £150,000 to £250,000, closes 11 November 2026.
• Efficient, Structured and Controllable AI Systems: £50,000 to £150,000 for SMEs working alone, closes 18 November 2026.
• Investor Partnerships – Battery Innovation Programme: closes 25 November 2026.

December brings the three BridgeAI Deployment Catalyst strands (£100,000 to £200,000 for SMEs deploying AI with a medium or large deployer, closing 8 December), the Growth Cohorts low-carbon concrete entry (2 December) and the battery innovation feasibility and concept rounds (2 December). The Healthy Soils and Water and KTP rounds run into January 2027. Each competition's eligibility is precise about company size, collaboration and technology readiness level, so read the brief on the Innovation Funding Service before you plan.

Government and sector schemes

GOV.UK's finance and support for your business finder listed 173 schemes on 26 October 2026, mixing grants with loans, advice and regional programmes, and GOV.UK Find a grant carries the departmental grants. Examples open to businesses on OpenGrant include the Workplace Charging Scheme and Electric Car Grant from the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles and the Department for Transport, the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (£5,000 to £7,500, rolling), and the Heat Network Efficiency Scheme. These are the vouchers that pull the median down; they are easy to get if you qualify and not worth a business plan if you do not.

Local enterprise funds

Community foundations and local authorities run small enterprise grants for very small and new businesses, which rarely appear in national lists. On 26 October 2026 OpenGrant showed:

• SWEF Enterprise Fund - Established Business Grant, Somerset Community Foundation: up to £2,000, rolling.
• SWEF Enterprise Fund - Start-Up Grant, Somerset Community Foundation: up to £500, rolling.
• SWEF, Cornwall Community Foundation: up to £2,000, rolling.

Regional growth funds, such as the South Yorkshire productivity grant and the Sunderland innovation grant listed on GOV.UK's finder, fund capital and digital projects at 40% or similar contribution rates. The grants for CICs guide covers the social enterprise funds that sit between the business and charity lists.

How to filter 525 schemes to the five that matter

1. Set the applicant filter to business and the amount band to the size you need; the tail of sub-£1,000 vouchers disappears.
2. Add your region. Many regional funds apply only within a combined authority or county.
3. Sort by deadline and check the November 2026 deadlines page for dated rounds, then the rolling and undated page, checking each scheme’s status and funder guidance before applying.
4. Open the record and read the funder's brief: intervention rate, collaboration rules, company size, trading history and technology readiness level are where most business applications fail eligibility.
5. Save the filter as a weekly alert, which is free with an account, so next month's calls arrive without a search.

What to avoid

Applying to an Innovate UK competition without the collaborator or readiness level it specifies; treating a voucher as if it were core funding; and paying for a "grant finder" that lists the same public competitions. The free routes, GOV.UK's finders, the Innovation Funding Service and OpenGrant's business page, cover the public and lottery programmes between them; free UK grant finders sets out what each one leaves out. For a sense of how many deadlines fall in a typical month across every sector, UK grants closing this month has the counts.