Market Readiness Assistance (MRA) Grant Guide for Singapore SMEs

Last updated: 23 September 2026

The Market Readiness Assistance (MRA) grant is the Enterprise Singapore (EnterpriseSG) scheme that helps Singapore SMEs take their business into overseas markets. Where domestic grants fund productivity and capability building at home, the MRA grant is built for the first serious step abroad: promoting the business in a new market, developing in-market opportunities, and setting up a compliant overseas presence. It supports a share of eligible third-party costs, applies a grant cap per company per new market, and treats each new overseas market as a separate application. This guide explains what the MRA grant covers, the three supportable activity categories, funding shape, eligibility, and how to apply through the Business Grants Portal. It also covers a point many SMEs miss: how the MRA grant pairs with the workforce side of overseas expansion. Criteria are set by EnterpriseSG and may change, so treat the figures here as indicative and verify current details with BizGrants before you plan a submission. For related domestic funding, compare our Enterprise Development Grant guide and Productivity Solutions Grant guide.

What is the Market Readiness Assistance grant?

The MRA grant is EnterpriseSG's core support scheme for internationalisation by smaller companies. The intent is straightforward: overseas expansion carries real upfront cost and risk, and many capable SMEs stall at the point where they would otherwise test a foreign market. By co-funding eligible third-party costs, the grant lowers the barrier to that first structured expansion step, whether the target is a neighbouring ASEAN market or somewhere further afield.

The grant is deliberately market-specific. Support is assessed against a defined target market and a defined activity, not against a general ambition to grow overseas. That structure is why each new overseas market is treated as its own application, with its own scope and its own cap. A company entering three markets over two years would prepare three submissions rather than one combined request. Because approval is tied to a specific scope, the quality of that scope, and the documentation behind it, matters more than the size of the company.

The three supportable activity categories

MRA support is organised around three categories of activity. Most applications sit primarily in one category, though a market-entry plan often draws on more than one over time.

Overseas market promotion

This category covers marketing and public relations activity aimed at building awareness and demand in the target market. Typical eligible work includes market-specific branding, promotional campaigns, and public relations engagements delivered by qualified third parties. The goal is to help the company become visible and credible to buyers in a market where it is not yet known.

Overseas business development

This category covers the work of finding and developing actual opportunities in the target market. It commonly includes market-entry planning, in-market business matching, and support to identify and engage partners, agents, or distributors. This is the category most closely tied to commercial outcomes, since the deliverables tend to be qualified leads, introductions, or partnership discussions rather than awareness alone.

Overseas market set-up

This category covers the advisory needed to establish a compliant presence in the new market. It typically includes guidance on the legal, tax, and regulatory steps involved in setting up an entity or operating structure overseas. For many SMEs this is the least familiar part of expansion, and the category exists to fund the specialist advice that de-risks it.

How much does the MRA grant fund?

The MRA grant supports 50% of eligible third-party costs, subject to prevailing EnterpriseSG caps and eligibility. A grant cap is applied per company per new market, commonly framed as up to S$100,000 per new market. Both the support level and the cap are set by EnterpriseSG and are subject to change, so they should be read as indicative rather than guaranteed.

Two features of the funding shape are worth planning around:

• Per-market, not per-company. Because the cap applies per new market, a company expanding into several markets can access support for each one, provided each market qualifies and is submitted separately. This is a meaningful difference from schemes capped once per company.
• Third-party costs only. The grant funds eligible costs paid to qualified third parties for the promotion, business development, or set-up work. Internal salaries, business-as-usual marketing, and commodity spend are generally outside scope. Where the expansion also creates a role to be hired or redeployed, that talent cost is addressed by a different scheme rather than by MRA.

As with any co-funding scheme, the practical funded amount depends on which costs qualify and how they are documented. Scoping the eligible cost lines before committing spend is the single biggest lever on the final claim.

Who is eligible for the MRA grant?

Eligibility is assessed at the company and market levels. The conditions below are set by EnterpriseSG and are subject to prevailing criteria, so confirm your specific position before applying.

• Singapore-registered business entity. The applicant must be a business entity registered and operating in Singapore.
• At least 30% local shareholding. The company should meet the local-shareholding condition applied across EnterpriseSG SME schemes.
• SME size condition. Group annual turnover of not more than S$100 million, or group employment of not more than 200. Meeting either limb generally satisfies the size test, but the prevailing definition applies.
• New overseas market. The activity must target a new overseas market, that is, a market where the company has not exceeded a threshold of overseas sales. A market in which the company already has substantial sales is typically not treated as new.

The new-market condition is the one that most often surprises applicants. It is not enough for the activity to be overseas; the specific market must be one the company has not already established sales in beyond the prevailing threshold. This is another reason the grant is scoped market by market.

How to apply through the Business Grants Portal

MRA applications are made through the Business Grants Portal, the same portal used for other EnterpriseSG and government grants, accessed with your company's Corppass. The general flow is:

• Define the market and activity. Identify the target market and the activity category (promotion, business development, or set-up) before drafting anything else.
• Scope the third-party costs. Obtain quotations from the qualified third parties who will deliver the work, and map them to eligible cost lines.
• Submit before committing spend. Applications are made ahead of the activity. Costs committed before approval are generally not supportable.
• Deliver and document. Complete the activity and retain the deliverables, invoices, and proof of payment.
• Claim. Submit the claim with supporting documents after the activity is completed.

Because each new market is a separate application, companies planning a multi-market expansion should sequence submissions rather than attempt to bundle them. Approval is not automatic, and a clear scope with complete documentation is what moves an application through cleanly.

Common MRA pitfalls

• Committing spend before approval. Engaging a vendor or paying for the activity before the application is approved usually puts those costs out of scope. Submit first.
• Treating an existing market as new. Applying for a market where the company already has meaningful sales fails the new-market condition. Check the threshold before scoping.
• Bundling several markets into one request. Each new market is a separate application with its own cap. Combining them creates avoidable friction.
• Weak documentation. Missing quotations, deliverables, or payment proofs slow the claim or reduce the supported amount. Keep the paper trail complete from the start.
• Ignoring the talent cost. Funding the market-entry activity but not planning for the person who will run it leaves half the expansion unfunded. Consider the workforce scheme alongside MRA.

MRA in a wider expansion plan

The MRA grant is most effective when it is treated as one component of a funded expansion plan rather than a standalone reimbursement. The market-entry activity it funds, promotion, business development, and set-up, is what opens the market. The person hired or redeployed to run that market is what sustains it, and that talent cost sits with the Overseas Markets Career Conversion Programme rather than with MRA. Companies that build capability at home first, using schemes such as the Enterprise Development Grant, tend to enter overseas markets from a stronger base. Our travel media workforce build-out case study shows what the workforce side of an expansion-minded SME can look like in practice, and our fund management finance cohort case study illustrates a cohort-based capability build. The details of every scheme are set by the relevant agency and are subject to change, so verify current criteria with BizGrants before you build a plan around them.

→ Read next: Enterprise Development Grant Application Guide for Singapore SMEs
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