This is $1.5 billion you do not pay back, and the cap on a single contribution has gone from $1 million to $3 million. It is also slow, competitive, and useless to you unless you can name a specific project and prove the tariffs hit you.
Status as of 19 September 2026. The Regional Tariff Response Initiative was announced as part of Ottawa’s $7.5 billion support package for tariff-affected businesses and workers, alongside the counter-tariffs that came into force on 8 September 2026. It is delivered through the regional development agencies rather than one national portal. We do not have a published intake date, form name or application URL for it, and we will not invent one — confirm the current intake and terms with your regional development agency before you plan around this money.
The Regional Tariff Response Initiative puts $1.5 billion into non-repayable contributions for small and medium-sized businesses affected by the tariffs. Non-repayable means exactly what it sounds like: money toward a project that you do not pay back. The cap on a contribution has been raised from $1 million to $3 million, and there is liquidity support of up to $2 million.
It is delivered by Canada’s regional development agencies. In British Columbia, including Vancouver Island, that is PacifiCan. Which agency you deal with depends on where your business operates, not where you bank.
The word that matters is project. This is not an operating subsidy and not a top-up for a bad quarter. You are asking a federal agency to co-fund something you are going to do, and the first question they will ask is what that something is.
Who qualifies
Two tests, and both are real. You have to be a small or medium-sized business, and you have to be affected by the tariffs in a way you can show on paper. “Everything costs more” is not showing it. A classification, a volume and a landed cost before and after is showing it.
Who does not qualify, or should not bother:
- Large employers. There is a separate $10 billion Large Enterprise Tariff Loan facility for you, with coverage extended from 24 to 36 months and a maximum term of 15 years. This is not your program.
- Businesses with no demonstrable tariff impact. If your inputs and outputs are not captured and your costs have not moved, you are competing against businesses whose costs have.
- Businesses with a shortfall but no project. A contribution funds a thing you are doing — new equipment, a new line, a shift to a different supplier or a different market. If the honest answer is “we need cash,” look at the liquidity stream or at a loan instead, and say so plainly rather than dressing a deficit up as a pivot.
- Businesses that need the money this month. Contribution agreements are negotiated, not dispensed. If your runway is measured in weeks, this is the wrong instrument.
Eligibility criteria can differ between agencies and between intakes. Confirm yours with the agency that covers your region before you spend a week writing.
What you need before you start
Assemble this first. Every one of these takes longer to produce than you think, and an agency officer who asks for them and waits three weeks has already formed a view of you.
Who you are
Legal name, your 15-digit business number, incorporation documents, ownership structure, locations, and current employee count.
Proof the tariffs hit you
Which inputs or products are captured, the 8-digit tariff classification for each, import volumes and values, and landed cost before and after 8 September 2026.
The project, costed
What you will do, line by line, with quotes rather than estimates. Equipment, software, installation, training, timeline, start and finish dates.
Your financials
Recent year-end statements, interim statements to the most recent month, and a cash flow forecast that covers the project period.
Your share of the cost
Ask the agency what proportion of project costs a contribution covers in this intake, and have an answer ready for the rest — cash, bank facility or shareholder funds.
What the money achieves
Jobs protected or created, capacity added, revenue at risk without it. Numbers you are willing to be held to, because you will be.
The second card is the one businesses cannot produce. Most owners know their costs went up. Very few can name the classification, the rate and the dollar figure per month — which is the only version of that fact an application can use.
The steps, in order
- Establish your exposure in numbers. Which inputs are captured, under which 8-digit classification, at 15%, 25% or 50%, and what that costs you per month. Do this before anything else, because every later step depends on it.
- Decide which stream you are asking for. A non-repayable contribution toward a capital investment or a pivot, or liquidity support. They answer different problems and the case you write is different.
- Define the project. One paragraph a stranger can understand, then a costed breakdown underneath it. If you cannot write the paragraph, you do not have a project yet.
- Contact your regional development agency before you write the application. In British Columbia that is PacifiCan. Confirm the intake is open, what form the submission takes, what they want attached, and how long assessment is currently running. This conversation saves weeks.
- Ask how the funds flow. Specifically: are you reimbursed against paid invoices, or advanced funds up front? The answer determines whether you need the cash yourself first, and it changes whether this program is any use to you.
- Assemble the file, then submit through the agency’s own channel. Not through a broker, not through a site that found you first. The agency is the only place your application belongs.
- Answer due diligence with documents. Expect questions about your financials, your project costs and your tariff exposure. Answer each with a document, not with a paragraph.
- Read the contribution agreement before you sign it. It will contain reporting obligations and conditions on what the money can be spent on. Those obligations outlive the cheque.
Be honest with yourself first
What makes applications fail. Three things, in order. No demonstrable tariff impact — a general complaint about costs rather than a classification and a number. No real project — a funding request wearing a project’s clothes, which an officer who reads these all week spots immediately. And no capacity to finish — financials that do not show you can complete the work even with the contribution.
How long it realistically takes. Plan on months, not weeks, from first contact to money. There is no published service standard we can point you to, and the assessment includes due diligence on your finances and a negotiated agreement at the end. Do not commit to a supplier on the strength of an application you have not been approved for.
Who should not apply. If the money is to cover a shortfall rather than fund a change, if your exposure to the tariffs is a feeling rather than a figure, or if you need cash inside sixty days — do not spend three weeks on this. Look at a loan, at duty relief if your goods are re-exported, or at remission if a critical input genuinely has no substitute outside the United States. Those are real options and they are faster.
Or is the other one yours?
The two programs businesses confuse most are this one and BDC Pivot to Grow. They are not alternatives so much as different instruments.
This program
Money you do not repay, for a project.
Up to $3 million non-repayable, plus liquidity support up to $2 million. Slower, more paperwork, and you have to be doing something specific with it.
BDC Pivot to Grow
Debt, from $250,000 to $5 million.
Interest-only for the first 36 months, and a $1 million revenue threshold applies. You pay it back, but it is a bank process rather than a contribution negotiation.
How to apply for BDC Pivot to Grow →
Where we fit
We are a software studio in Nanaimo, not a grant consultancy. We do not file applications, we do not write them for you, and we take no percentage of anything you are awarded. If you get $3 million and we never hear about it, that is a good outcome.
What we do is the work that comes first. An application to this program stands or falls on whether you can show which of your inputs are actually captured, under which classification, at what rate, and what that costs you per month. That is a research job, it is unglamorous, and almost no owner can do it from the inside while also running the business. It is also the same evidence base that tells you whether the project you are proposing is the right one.
Questions people ask
Is the Regional Tariff Response Initiative a loan?
The contributions are non-repayable, with a cap raised from $1 million to $3 million. There is also liquidity support of up to $2 million. Ask your regional development agency how each stream is structured in the current intake, because “liquidity support” and “non-repayable contribution” are not the same instrument and the conditions attached differ.
Who delivers it in British Columbia?
PacifiCan. The initiative runs through Canada’s regional development agencies, and the agency is determined by where your business operates. There is no single national application to find.
How much can I actually get?
Up to $3 million as a non-repayable contribution, and up to $2 million in liquidity support. Those are caps, not entitlements, and the total pool is $1.5 billion across the country. Most awards will be a long way below the cap.
When does the intake close?
We do not know, and we will not guess. Intake windows and program terms move, sometimes without much notice. Ask the agency directly what the current window is and whether it is open today, and do not rely on any date you read on a website that is not the agency’s own.
Can I apply for this and for tariff remission at the same time?
Yes. They do different things. Remission asks to be relieved of the surtax on a specific good; this funds a change in your business. Nothing in one prevents the other, and for some businesses both are worth pursuing.
Do I have to spend the money first and claim it back?
Ask the agency. Contribution programs vary in whether they reimburse against paid invoices or advance funds, and the answer decides whether you need the cash in hand before you start. We would rather tell you to ask than tell you something that turns out to be wrong at the worst moment.
Related
- Every federal tariff support program, indexed
- How to apply for tariff remission in Canada
- How to apply for BDC Pivot to Grow
- Back to the tariff hub
InfiniteUp is a four-person software studio in Nanaimo, BC. 40+ apps shipped, 60,000+ installs, 117 countries. See our work.
InfiniteUp does not administer the Regional Tariff Response Initiative, is not affiliated with any regional development agency, and takes nothing from the program. Program terms, caps, eligibility and intake windows change — confirm current details with the agency that covers your region before you rely on anything here. This is operational guidance from a software studio, not legal, financial or tax advice. Last reviewed 19 September 2026.