On August 11th, the Government of Canada updated the calculator and Canada.ca with the changes to the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS).
If you’re a business owner who has suffered losses as a result of COVID-19 and did NOT qualify previously for CEWS, you may now qualify.
The changes expand the program to include more businesses for periods 5 to 9 (July 5 to November 21, 2020) and have been published on Canada.ca, here are some of the changes:
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the subsidy rate varies, depending on how much your revenue dropped
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if your revenue drop was less than 30% you can still qualify, and keep getting the subsidy as employees return to work and your revenue recovers
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employers who were hardest hit over a period of three months get a higher amount
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employees who were unpaid for 14 or more days can now be included in your calculation
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use the current period’s revenue drop or the previous period’s, whichever works in your favour
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for periods 5 and 6, if your revenue dropped at least 30%, your subsidy rate will be at least 75%
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even if your revenue has not dropped for the claim period, you can still qualify if your average revenue over the previous three months dropped more than 50%
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the maximum base subsidy rate is 60% in claim periods 5 and 6
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the maximum base subsidy rate will begin to decline in claim period 7, gradually reducing to 20% in period 9
The Government of Canada has updated the CEWS calculator to reflect these changes and can be found here: