Regional Tariff Response Initiative for businesses: Who can apply

1. Who can apply?

1. Eligible applicants

To be eligible, your business or Indigenous (First Nations, Métis and Inuit Peoples) business must:

• Be located and operating in southern Ontario at the time of your application (see Applicant Information section in the Application guide for more details).
• Be incorporated and registered to do business in Canada or Ontario for at least the past 3 years.
• Operate as a for-profit business.
• Employ a minimum of 5 full-time equivalent employees in southern Ontario and fewer than 500 full-time equivalent employees overall.
• Viable prior to the tariffs imposed by the U.S. and China, and prior to March 21, 2025.

In addition, your business must either:

• Have at least 25% of your sales in the markets targeted by the tariffs; OR
• Demonstrate that it has been directly affected by ongoing trade disruptions, including U.S. and China tariffs or Canadian measures. This could be demonstrated by:
  • Increased cost for the purchase of production materials (e.g., supply chain disruption, changes to lead times, costs of supplies, alternative sourcing).
  • Increased retail cost of finished product.
  • Addition of an import or export tax.
  • Revenue decline and/or loss of market access (e.g., loss of customers or contracts, reduced export volumes).
  • Employment effects due to tariffs (e.g., layoffs, hiring freezes, uptake of the Economic and Social Development Canada Work-Sharing Program).
  • Other evidence provided by the applicant demonstrating that the business has been negatively impacted.

Thinking about applying?

• Determine if you are eligible by completing the online self-screening tool.
• Indigenous applicants may contact us at indigenous-autochtones@feddevontario.gc.ca with any questions about your application.

Businesses in all impacted sectors, may be eligible for non-repayable financial support. A portion of FedDev Ontario’s investments will give priority to projects that support impacted businesses in the steel, automotive and food security sectors to overcome trade disruptions.

The RTRI forms part of a comprehensive suite of federal tariff relief programs, which also includes:

• Workforce Alliances;
• Large Enterprise Tariff Loan Facility;
• Business Development Bank of Canada’s Pivot to Grow initiative; and the
• Strategic Response Fund

RTRI funding is designed to work in coordination with other federal and provincial tariff-related supports. Applicants are encouraged to seek out and leverage sector-specific programs where applicable. 

Non-repayable financial support priority may be given to applicants based on factors such as: 

• Business operations are situated in the region for which funding is being requested;
• Canadian ownership;
• Demonstrated ability to complete activities within set deadlines;
• Capacity to obtain funding from non-governmental sources;
• Operation within sectors notably impacted by tariffs;
• Economic contributions to the local community and region; and
• Preference for purchasing Canadian and domestic capacity.

See Section 2: How Funding Works for eligibility criteria for non-repayable support.

Please note

If you have an active project with FedDev Ontario, an application for RTRI must be distinct and separate. Your business can only submit one application to FedDev Ontario at a time, across any of the open programs. Multiple applications to different programs will not be accepted.

---

2. Eligible activities

RTRI supports businesses and sectors impacted by tariffs through projects that can be executed in the timeframe of this initiative (March 2025 to March 2028), by:

• Helping businesses undertake projects to boost productivity, enhance competitiveness and reduce costs to mitigate tariff impacts; and
• Enabling greater resiliency among Canadian businesses through more robust domestic supply chains, enhanced internal trade, market diversification, and future-proofing operations.

Eligible activities include, but are not limited to:

• Digitizing, automating, or acquiring, adopting or adapting technology to enhance productivity and competitiveness.
• Market diagnostics, development and expansion activities, including joining trade missions, to help find new customers and reduce tariff exposure.
• Building strategic partnerships, optimizing supply chains, and ensuring compliance with standards to enhance your company’s global and/or domestic presence.
• Strengthening supply chains and facilitating internal trade to enhance the resilience and reliability of domestic markets.
• Business support, market development in all markets, and guidance services, e.g., advice for businesses from a sectoral organization.
• Research and development mandates and/or highly qualified personnel/expertise to southern Ontario. This includes both new activities and activities previously conducted outside Canada that are being brought to the region, as a result of this initiative.

• Next