Small businesses may be eligible for economic relief related to COVID-19

Small Business Administration Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Program may be activated for business impacted by COVID-19

The following press release appeared here: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/small-business-assistance-for-covid-19

The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and Baker-Polito Administration are working closely with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to activate the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program which would provide assistance to eligible businesses and non-profits impacted by COVID-19.

The first step in this process is to meet a minimum threshold of affected businesses within Massachusetts and provide this information to the SBA with a formal request for activation of the EIDL within the Commonwealth. To do this, MEMA posted an online survey tool to collect economic loss data from small businesses across the state. Small businesses were asked to complete the survey and return it to MEMA via this website. The response through Monday March 16, 2020 has been overwhelming and we thank all small businesses who participated. At this time, MEMA has collected enough small business loss data to prepare a request for EIDL to be submitted by Governor Baker to the SBA. We are no longer collecting Small Business economic loss surveys and are now in the process of assisting the Governor with requesting the SBA EIDL program.

We will make an announcement and this website will be updated once the EIDL program is activated for Massachusetts. Once activated, all small businesses within affected counties will become eligible to apply directly through SBA. Businesses who did not fill out the initial survey remain eligible to apply once the program is activated. In addition, businesses who did fill out the initial survey will still need to apply for the EIDL program through SBA.

To stay updated, check the Massachusetts Emergency Management website.