Business support in Surrey in 2026: what is open and what is not

Lists of business support go out of date quickly, because funds open and close. The Surrey Economic Growth Fund, the county council's own fund, is not open for applications as we write this.

So this is a list of what is open and what is not, taken from the organisations' own pages on the date shown above. If you are reading it later, check each link before you plan around it. If you are also preparing for the move to East Surrey Council in April 2027, that piece covers what to check.

Start here: Business Surrey

Business Surrey is Surrey County Council's business support service, and it is free. It says it can help with:

• Growing your business, including access to its Growth Hub experts.
• Funding and grants, pointing you to what is available, and signposting live funding rounds through its business support form.
• Regulation and licensing, directing you to the right team.
• A directory of support services available in the county.

For most small businesses, a conversation with Business Surrey is the sensible first step: it costs nothing, and its team knows what is open this month, which no article can.

Closed: the Surrey Economic Growth Fund

The Surrey Economic Growth Fund is overseen by Surrey County Council, and its page says it is not currently open for applications. For context, here is how it worked last time, from the same page:

• Round one closed in May 2025, with recipients announced in September 2025.
• Round two closed in November 2025, with funding announced in January 2026.
• Business Growth Grants were match-funded, between £10,000 and £75,000, covering up to 50% of eligible project costs, for Surrey-based small and medium-sized businesses.

If a future round opens, the match-funding requirement is the part to plan for: you would need to find at least half the project cost yourself.

Open: Made Smarter South East, for manufacturers and makers

Made Smarter South East is a government-funded programme for manufacturing small businesses and makers in the South East, including Surrey. According to Business Surrey, support includes:

• Match-funding of up to £20,000 (50%).
• Expert advice and a digital roadmap for your business.
• Leadership and workforce training.
• A fully funded student internship of up to 300 hours.

It is aimed at adopting technologies such as 3D printing, robotics, automation and artificial intelligence. Eligibility includes having fewer than 250 employees and a turnover below £44 million, and the programme page lists other conditions. It starts with a free personalised assessment.

Open: two national schemes that apply in Surrey

The Youth Jobs Grant. Launched on 30 June 2026 across Great Britain, it gives an employer £3,000 for hiring an eligible young person: aged 18 to 24, out of work and on Universal Credit for six months. The GOV.UK guidance says it is open to employers of any size, including sole traders intending to hire, that have been trading for six months, for jobs of at least 25 hours a week. It is expected to close to new participants in October 2028.

The Workplace Charging Scheme. If you are thinking about electric vehicle charge points for staff or fleet vehicles, GOV.UK's chargepoint grants guidance says the scheme is available until 31 March 2027, worth up to £500 per socket for installations completed from 1 April 2026, for up to 40 sockets across your sites. The same two schemes apply in Somerset, alongside the support listed in business support in Somerset in 2026.

Closed recently: the Farming Innovation Accelerator

For farmers and growers, Business Surrey's funding page listed a Farming Innovation Accelerator, with grants of up to £35,000 and a deadline of 16 August 2026. That deadline has passed. It is a good example of why the newsletter matters: a round can open and close between two visits to a website.

Networks, not funds

Some of the most useful support is not money. In and around Epsom:

• Surrey Chambers of Commerce runs networking and training for members across the county.
• Epsom Business Club says it charges no membership fees and meets on the first Wednesday of every other month.
• Go Epsom, the town's Business Improvement District, runs a business directory and a What's On calendar for the town centre; we wrote about how it came about.

We wrote about how to choose which local networks are worth your time.

Before you plan around any of it

The ticks are saved in this browser.

• I have checked the scheme's own page, today, for whether it is open.
• I know whether it needs match-funding, and where my share would come from.
• I have read the eligibility conditions, not just the headline amount.
• I have asked Business Surrey what else is open for a business like mine.
• I have signed up to Business Surrey's newsletter.

If a grant is funding a new website, new equipment or a push for customers, the marketing still has to be planned. Our marketing for businesses in Epsom and Ewell page sets out how we work locally, with fixed prices published up front.