Recovery Loan Scheme and CBILS: what replaced them

No. The Recovery Loan Scheme is closed for applications. From 1 July 2024 it was extended and rebranded as the Growth Guarantee Scheme, which is open until 31 March 2030. The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) closed earlier, on 31 March 2021.

So a search for a CBILS loan or a Recovery Loan today leads to one place for new borrowing: the Growth Guarantee Scheme, provided through accredited lenders. If you already hold a facility under either closed scheme, it carries on.

CBILS was followed by three iterations of the Recovery Loan Scheme, and the third was carried forward as the Growth Guarantee Scheme. The guarantee to the lender fell from 80% to 70% along the way.

The first two iterations of the Recovery Loan Scheme enabled £4.33bn of lending. Under CBILS, £25.83bn was drawn; at 31 March 2026, 64.55% of that had been fully repaid and 22.82% was being repaid on schedule.

Your facility continues under the agreement you signed, on the same terms, and you remain fully liable for the debt. The scheme closing changed nothing about what you owe or when.

• CBILS had its own personal guarantee rules. No personal guarantee could be taken for a CBILS facility below £250,000. Above that, recoveries under a personal guarantee were capped at 20% of the outstanding balance after the proceeds of business assets had been applied, and a principal private residence could not be taken as security. Check how your agreement reflects them.
• Recovery Loan Scheme terms can sometimes be extended. A term extension up to a maximum of 10 years can be made for an existing facility in certain situations, in connection with forbearance and at the lender’s discretion.
• Refinancing is possible but not automatic. Refinancing an existing facility into the Growth Guarantee Scheme is treated as a new application. Borrower protections and terms differ between the schemes, so speak to your lender first.

It depends on the scheme and the date the facility was offered. A Growth Guarantee Scheme facility counts as a subsidy. Outside the Northern Ireland Protocol, the limit is £315,000 over the current and two preceding UK fiscal years. For general sectors in scope, it is £255,000 (€300,000) over the three years before the offer. Primary production agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture have lower limits and use the business’s or group’s current and two preceding fiscal years.

The subsidy is not the loan amount. It is a calculated value that the lender gives you. Separately from the subsidy calculation, the British Business Bank says borrowing under the earlier schemes may reduce the maximum amount you are eligible for, so tell the lender about every facility you hold. Our post on applying with an existing Covid-era loan goes through each case.

The Growth Guarantee Scheme keeps the headline terms of the final Recovery Loan Scheme and is less generous than CBILS, which was built for an emergency.

For new government-backed borrowing, the Growth Guarantee Scheme is the scheme to ask lenders about. It covers term loans, overdrafts, asset finance, invoice finance and asset-based lending, and the lender decides whether to use it for your facility. Our overview of government-backed business loans lists the other options that are open.

Capzy is a credit broker, not a lender, and gets paid by the lender. We take your details once, including the facilities you already hold, and introduce you to lenders that may fit, subject to status and lender criteria. Scheme facilities are only available through British Business Bank accredited lenders. You can check your funding options without affecting your credit score; a full application to a lender may involve a hard search.

New borrowing is the wrong answer when the existing facility is already hard to service. A lender will assess whether the business can afford the new repayments on top of the old ones, and a business in difficulty is not eligible for the Growth Guarantee Scheme.

• If the pressure is on cash flow, talk to your existing lender about the facility you have before adding another.
• If you hold a CBILS facility, weigh the personal guarantee protections you would give up by refinancing it.
• If you still have a Bounce Back Loan as well, it is fixed at 2.5% a year, and replacing it with commercial borrowing will usually cost more. See the options for Bounce Back Loan borrowers before changing it.

Where finance outside the schemes fits better, the usual routes are term loans, asset finance, invoice finance and revolving credit, all subject to status and lender criteria.