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Financial support for companies from Hospitality industry

It was approved the financial support for the companies from tourism industry, accommodation facilities, food structures and tourism agencies, for which the activity was impacted by the pandemic situation of Covid-19. The value of the support is 20% applied to the differences between the activity of 2020 and the one of 2019, but no more than 800.000 Euro. The Emergency Ordinance No. 10/2021 states also a new deadline for the beneficiaries of the financial support until which they will receive the compensation for their decrease of activity in 2020.

It was published in the Official Gazette no. 186/24 February 2021 the Emergency Ordinance no. 10/2021 which modifies the Emergency Ordinance No. 224/2020 related to the measures of financial support for the enterprises from Hospitality industry.

The Ministry of Economy will approve the procedure for the implementation of the state aid scheme in a maximum of 60 days from the date the Emergency Ordinance entered into force.

The main changes made by the Emergency Ordinance No. 10/2021 in the state aid scheme:

• Every change and/or addition to the state aid scheme will produce effects starting with the date of the communication of the authorization decision issued by the European Commission
• The signing of the financing contract will take place until December 31, 2021 and the amounts will be paid until June 30, 2022. Previously, the deadlines stated by the Emergency Ordinance No. 224/2020 were June 30, 2021 for signing the contracts and the payment to be done in maximum 30 days after the contract was signed.
• There is a new category of beneficiaries added by the Emergency Ordinance No. 10/2021: Certified Tour Guides, which carried out activities on the Romanian territory and declared their activity using the NACE Code 7990 “Other reservation services and touristic assistance”. The activities are eligible if they are provided under a tourism license, classification certificates, operating permits or valid travel guide certificates.

The others beneficiaries of the aid scheme remain the tourism agencies, which carried out activities using NACE codes: 7911, 7912, 7990; tourist reception structures with accommodation functions which carried out activities under the NACE codes: 5510, 5520, 5530, 5590 and food structures, which carried out activities under NACE codes: 5610, 5621, 5629, 5630, all of them being registered for tax purposes on the Romanian territory.

• The state aid will be provided as a grant in amount of maximum 20% of the calculation base, resulted from carrying out the activities under the NACE codes mentioned above, comparing the activities for 2020 with the ones for 2019. The figures have to be the gross values, before the deduction of the taxes.

The calculation basis will be determined according to the category of beneficiaries:

a) The companies which reported turnover will receive 20% from the differences between the turnover registered in 2020 and the one registered in 2019.

b) The beneficiaries which applied the special regime for the tourism agencies according to the art.311 from Fiscal Code, will receive 20% from the differences between the volume of the invoices issued for touristic services, including the margin, for the year 2019 and the volume (including the margin) for the year 2020.

c) The Beneficiaries which keep the records using single-entry bookkeeping according with the art.1 par. 5) from the Accounting Law no. 82/1991, will receive 20% from the differences between the total receivables from the eligible activity of 2019 and the ones from 2020.

• The maximum state aid for each beneficiary is limited at 000 Euro and if the company received other aids represented also by other types of compensations, the total amount has to be under 1.8 million Euro.
• Through the state aid scheme, the estimated number of beneficiaries is 73.211. If the total value of the requests approved for the financial support will exceed the budget that was allocated, the approved and paid amounts for each beneficiary will be calculated as a ratio between the approved amount for each beneficiary and the total values of the approved applications. Before the Ordinance, the aids should have been granted using the order of the submission of the requests.
• The basis for the calculation of the aid has to be certified and assumed by a chartered accountant or an accounting company member of the Body of Expert and Licensed Accountants of Romania (CECCAR) or by an auditor or an audit company member of the Chamber of Financial Auditors of Romania (CAFR), selected and paid by the beneficiary.
• Along with the conditions of the limitation of the total amount of the aids received and the exclusion of the companies under insolvency proceedings at the moment of the submission of the applications for the financial support, the beneficiaries must have already submitted the Annual Financial Reports for the last two financial years if they had this obligation.

• In order to grant the aids, the representatives of the supplier have the obligation to check the following:

a) The eligibility criteria are met;

b) The existence of the accounting expertise report, electronically signed by the chartered accountant or the audit report, electronically signed by the financial auditor;

c) To verify the correspondence between the annual calculation basis resulted from the activity that is eligible for 2019 and 2020, declared on its own responsibility by the applicant in the registration form, with the values calculated, certified and assumed by the chartered accountant or the financial auditor.

d) The fact that the applicant has no fiscal liabilities or other budget receivables managed by the central fiscal body. In this sense, the state aid provider will extract automatically, the tax certificates, through the application PATRIMVEN. If such outstanding obligations are registered, the beneficiary undertakes to pay them from the aid granted under the program.

e) The eligibility of the expenses and their connection with the activity of the applicant.

• The beneficiaries will be obliged to maintain the activity for which they obtained the funding for at least 12 months from the payment date. The companies which received grants of more than 200.000 euro, the period is 24 months.
• If the supplier of the grants concludes that at the moment of the submission of the application, the beneficiary provided incomplete statements, unreal and inaccurate, the supplier proceeds to recover the state aid.