Applying for self-employment assistance

You have your own business. You are not entitled to an ordinary Social assistance benefit because you are an entrepreneur. Is your income temporarily lower than the social assistance standard? Then you can apply to the municipality for assistance for the self-employed. This is called a BBZ benefit.

There are 2 different benefits available:

• You get or borrow working capital.
• You receive or borrow a supplement to your income up to the welfare standard.

The Self-employment Assistance Decree (Bbz) also has options for self-employed people who need to terminate their business if the business is no longer viable.

Established entrepreneurs

An entrepreneur may experience temporary financial difficulties for a variety of reasons. The BBZ has a number of options for the established entrepreneur:

• An interest-bearing loan that you must repay over ten years.
• A benefit for a period of up to 12 months. This benefit supplements your own income.
• One-time working capital. You can also get this if you have enough income to live on, but no spare capacity for necessary investments.

Starting entrepreneurs

The BBZ also offers opportunities to people who want to start a business from unemployment benefit (WW benefit) or Social assistance benefit (Participation Act benefit). The municipality also looks at your partner's income. All income excluding WW must not exceed social assistance level.
The possibilities are:

• An interest-bearing credit.
• A benefit during the start-up phase of the business (maximum 36 months).