On 5 February 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Trade launched the third call of the COVID Program - Rent. There have been several major changes that expand the group of eligible persons. Applications must be submitted by 8 April 2021.

The aid under this program covers the time period from 1 October 2020 to 31 December 2020 or until the end of the lease (hereinafter as the "Relevant Period"). The aid will be provided in the form of a rent subsidy representing 50% of the relevant rent. [1]An entrepreneur who during the Relevant Period was using an establishment that he or she did not own, i.e.  based on a lease agreement signed before 1 October 2020, may apply for this aid.

Furthermore, it is required that the applicant was not allowed to sell goods or to provide services during Q4/2020 or that his or her revenues from goods sold or services provided in Q4/2020 dropped by at least 50% as compared to the same time period in 2019. In the case that the applicant started his or her business in the given establishment after 1 October 2019, he or she must prove the drop in his or her revenues in the given establishment in Q4/2020 as compared to his or her revenues in Q3/2020. We recommend to check whether or not the establishment is subject to exemptions specified in the program requirements.[2]

Whether or not the landlord provided a rent discount is no longer relevant, nor is the requirement that the landlord and the tenant cannot be related parties; however, the landlord and the tenant must not be the same natural person. It still applies that the applicant must have no delinquent payments with respect to certain institutions (e.g. the tax office, health insurance companies) that were due by 30 September 2020. The maximum aid is CZK 10,000,000 for all establishments of one applicant; the aid provided in individual calls of the COVID Program - Rent is not included in this amount. However, the aid is provided up to the unspent amount of the European Commission's Temporary Framework, which is EUR 800 000 and includes all aids provided to linked enterprises.[3]

Applicants from previous calls do not need to register. If their previous application has been approved, the system will offer to import the data from their previous application, as well as the data concerning their establishments. A certified signature on the landlord’s affidavit will no longer be required.

The application must include a confirmation of at least two consecutive regular rent payments between 1 July 2019 and 30 September 2020, a confirmation of the payment of at least 50% of the relevant rent for the given establishment amounting at least to the requested aid and affidavits (they are included in the application).

The aid recipient must keep the documentation concerning the received aid, in particular the lease agreement and all its amendments, for 10 years following the day the decision to provide the aid was issued. The aid recipient must also allow the aid provider, or other supervisory authorities, to check the relevant documentation for 10 years following the day the aid was provided. Since this is a relatively long time, we recommend carefully saving the entire documentation. We would like to point out that there is no legal entitlement to such aid and that its granting is subject to evaluation.

Please note that we did not list all the program requirements that must be fulfilled. This is a list of changes and an overview of the most important requirements. It is necessary to check the fulfillment of all requirements and the rules for obtaining the aid prior to filing the application.

We will be happy to help you with filling out the application and putting together all necessary documents. Do not hesitate to contact us regarding this matter.

[1] The total rent for the entire Relevant Period specified in the existing lease agreement.

[2] It concerns the establishments listed in I. 1. a) to I. 1. af) of Resolution no. 1376 of 23 December 2020, available here: https://www.vlada.cz/assets/media-centrum/aktualne/maloobchod-1376.pdf

[3] The definition of linked enterprises is provided in Article 3 (3) of Commission Regulation (EU) no. 651/2014 of 17 June 2014, available here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/CS/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32014R0651&from=CS