Small Business Grants in South Carolina

SC Export Incentives pays back agreed export costs while the money lasts, and it takes applications all year. The SCRA grants run from $25,000 to $50,000 depending on what you are building. Incumbent Worker Training pays for staff training through your local SC Works centre. That is close to the whole list. SC Commerce files several loan and equity products under a grants heading, and the Relentless Challenge, its flagship, does not take businesses at all.

Because the funding notice names nonprofits, town halls and colleges as the ones who may apply. The 2027 round is open now and shuts at 5pm on September 30, 2026. About $1 million is on offer. The caps are $50,000 on the small business track and $75,000 on the innovation track. You also need a dollar for dollar match from outside state funds. The 2026 round put more than $760,000 into 14 projects. A business gains from a funded programme, it does not get the grant.

Harder than the amounts suggest, because the grant is not the gate. SCRA grants go by invitation to member firms, so you apply to join first, and SCRA publishes the number. On average fewer than 40 percent of firms that ask to join get in. The route is an interest form, then a full application, then a pitch, then the terms. Founders with no product yet are told plainly that they are too early.

No. The 2026 window ran from May 27 to June 25 and shut. SCRA still shows those dates on two of its own pages, which is why stale listings elsewhere call it open. It backs early stage medical tech firms that widen rural access to health care, and the money comes from the federal Rural Health Transformation Program. That pot is big enough that a second round looks likely. No date has been posted, and we will not print one we cannot source.

Nothing about it can be checked today, which is why its card is marked dead rather than open. The CompTIA link bounces to their home page. The state notice behind it dates from April 2022. There is no programme page at all. The $5,000 was the value of training rather than cash in any case. If you want to chase it, ring the SC Department of Employment and Workforce, because a web search will not settle it.

Usually yes. The IRS says a government grant to a business generally is not excluded from gross income, so it is taxable. SC Export Incentives pays you back for costs you have already met, and those are usually deductible, so the two often cancel out. An SCRA grant is different. It funds the build rather than repaying a bill, so it lands as income on its own. It is not a rule, so ask your accountant.