In New York City Mayor de Blasio announced that the city will provide some relief for small businesses:

Businesses with fewer than 100 employees who have seen sales decreases of 25% or more will be eligible for zero-interest loans of up to $75,000.

Businesses with fewer than five employees can apply for a grant to cover 40% of payroll costs for 2 months to help retain employees.

Both of these NYC programs require that you:

  • Be located within the five boroughs of New York City
  • Demonstrate that the COVID-19 outbreak caused at least a 25% decrease in revenue
  • Have no outstanding tax liens or legal judgments

he Employee Retention Grant program is a grant of up to $27,000 to cover up to 40% of payroll.  This grant requires that you have 1-4 employees and have been in business 6 months or longer.  

The Business Continuity Loan program is an interest-free loan of up to $75,000.  Additional requirements for this program are that you have fewer than 99 employees and can demonstrate an ability to repay the loan.   

The challenge is showing the 25% decrease in revenue. 

The city currently compares average revenue over two months in 2020 and to the 12-month 2019 average OR to the average over the same two months in 2019. 

Since most businesses did not feel the economic impact until March, showing two months may be challenging until the end of April. 

But if you had a significant drop in March, this still may be worth trying.  You may also be giving refunds in March for sales in February.  You might be able to credit those back to February to show a decline.  If you don’t qualify now, you can always try again in May, apply now and apply in May.

We put together a calculator to help you figure this out.  Our calculator is a tool, not a guarantee.  Download the calculator here, (click here for download help) fill it out and it will give you an idea. Please note we built it quickly and tested it, but there may still be a typo we haven’t picked up.  

If you qualify, we can help you with the documentation that you need. 
To Apply:
For the Employee Retention Grant Program apply here.
For the Business Continuity Loan Program start the pre-application here.

You can find more information on this relief here.