The NYDA Grant Programme is designed to provide young entrepreneurs with an opportunity to access both financial and non- financial business development support in order to enable them to establish or grow their businesses.

The qualifying criteria includes:

• Are youth 18-35 years
• Youth with skills, experience or; with the potential skill, appropriate for the enterprise that they conduct or intend to conduct.
• Are South African citizens
• Are resident in South Africa;
• Members of entities should comprise 100% south African youth citizen
• Operate business within the borders of South Africa.
• Are adequately involved in the day-to-day operation and management of the business with at least one or more of the members being a fulltime employee of the business, especially the main applicant.
• Have completed life skills training and business management training programmes or related programmes as per recommendation from client(s) assessment.
• Have a business mentor and/or a coach approved by NYDA or must be allocated a business mentor by NYDA post application approval.
• Have relevant qualifications or business and/or technical experience including proven entrepreneurship business experience where applicable.
• Require the grant for a viable business idea.
• Previous NYDA Micro Loan Clients who accessed loans up to a maximum of R50,000 with paid up accounts will be eligible to access grant funding.
• Operate either informally or formally; generally recognized as micro enterprises (e.g. street traders, vendors, emerging enterprises);
• Have a profit motive and are commercially viable and sustainable;
• Individual entity must have a bank account.
• For cooperatives, they must have or be willing to form a group of minimum 5 persons.
• Upon approval of grant, if applicant is employed full time, he/she may be required to resign from employment and provide grant officer with proof of resignation;
• Where the entity constitutes more than one member, this will apply to the member with highest shareholding and is operationally involved in the business.

Thresholds / Type of businesses / Grant amount ranges

Threshold 1   

Idea generation and survivalist (start-ups)   

Grant: R1,000 – R10,000

Threshold 2   

Start-ups PTY and cooperatives   

Grant: R10,001 - R50,000

Threshold 3 

Growth stage PTY and cooperatives   

Grant: R50,001 - R100,000

Threshold 4   

Expansion stage PTY and cooperatives   

Grant: R100,001 – R200,000*

*For agriculture and technology related projects the maximum threshold is R250,000.00

Application Process/Procedure

• You must apply 3 months before you turn 35 years.
• Submission of all required documentation
• Proof of attending Business Management Training  course.
• Business Pitch presentation of 10 minutes – in person or telephonically.
• Due Diligence assessment conducted by the NYDA official on the business.

How to access the NYDA Grant Programme

Contact our Call Centre on: 0800 52 52 52 Or visit your nearest NYDA branch.

Application Form (Download here)