Sports facility usage grant

A facility usage grant can be awarded upon application to sports clubs that receive an operating grant for sports for the same year. The association must meet the following criteria:

1. The applicant's declared residence is in Helsinki, and the activities are open to all residents. The subject activities must be primarily targeted at Helsinki residents. 
2. The applicant must be an association registered at the Patent and Register Office. The club activities must be established and it must have been in operation for one whole calendar year before submitting the grant. This does not apply to clubs that have changed their name, have had a section register as an independent association, or if the applicant is a partial or total merger of two or more clubs that have received grants in the past.
3. The applicant’s primary activities, according to its rules, are physical activities and the sport it represents is a part of the Finnish Olympic Committee and/or belongs to the list of national sports associations that receive government contributions from the Ministry of Education and Health. Over 50% of the club’s regular exercise activities must be in sports that meet the above-mentioned criteria.
4. The sports club arranges regular, guided physical activities for a fixed group of its members at least 10 times during a 3-month period, considering the nature of the sport.
5. At least 50 of the club’s active members, or alternatively 20 active members under the age of 20, whose residence is in Helsinki, must participate in the club’s directed exercise activities.

The applicant must comply with the principles of good governance, the ethical principles for sports communities and  principles of the UN convention on the rights of the child in all its operations.

• Read the ethical principles for sports communities(Link leads to external service) (pdf, in Finnish).
• Read the principles of good governance for associations(Link leads to external service) (pdf, in Finnish).
• Read the principles of the UN convention on the rights of the child (in Finnish)(Link leads to external service)

Facility usage grants are awarded for activities facility usages costs that take place outside the sports facilities and locations owned by Sports Services. This means that the facility usage grant takes into account regular guided sessions organised in facilities owned and/or managed by other organisations and in school gyms.

To be eligible for consideration in the calculation, the facility usage must also meet the following criteria: 

1. The applicant has used a time slot for regular guided sports activities and paid rent for this. Regular sports activities carried out at a facility owned by the club itself are also considered for this calculation.
2. The calculation will consider the association’s actual facility use in previous year. 
3. In using facilities, only regular (at least 10 times during a contiguous 3-month period, considering the sport in question) guided training sessions organised by the applicant in sports facilities in the Helsinki metropolitan region that have included at least four active members and an instructor/coach will be taken into account. Sports facilities in the Helsinki metropolitan region include those located within the areas of Helsinki, Vantaa, Espoo and Kauniainen. 

On a discretionary basis, the amount of the facility usage grant may take into account significant changes in the applicant’s use of sports facilities during the year of application. Significant changes include the merging of sport clubs, the joining or leaving of a division or divisions to/from the club, a new sports facility leased or owned by the club (the lease for the said facility must be attached to the application) or the renunciation of a sports facility managed or owned by the applicant. The applicant must separately report these significant changes on the application form and the facility usage annex.

The calculation of the facility usage grant is based on the following factors: 

The calculated maximum hourly rate which determines the maximum grant amount per approved hour of facility use. One hour is 60 minutes. 

If the hourly rent paid by the applicant has been lower than the calculated maximum hourly rate, the amount of the actual grant will decrease accordingly. The maximum hourly rates are:

• Sports facilities and locations EUR 24 per hour
• Swimming pool lane reservations EUR 14 per hour 
• Ice time hours at an ice rink for groups under the age of 20 EUR 42 per hour 

The applicant does not need to consider the aforementioned calculated maximum price when reporting the rent. Instead, the application form must list the actual rent expenses. 

The calculation will weight activities for children and young people under the age of 20 by a 100 percent and activities for adults by 90 percent.

In the case of a sports facility managed by the applicant itself, the hourly rent is calculated as follows: The rental income received by the applicant for its facility is deducted from the rent paid by the applicant. The difference (between the rent and income) is divided by the number of hours the applicant itself used the facilities for regular training activities, resulting in an hourly rate for the use of the facility. With facilities controlled by the applicant, the hourly rent includes the share of the sports facilities of the rent. The share of office, meeting, and warehouse facilities in the rent is not considered. For a sports facility owned by the sports club, the association must include all of the facility’s operating costs (e.g. water, power, cleaning expenses) in the application.

The facility usage grant is calculated based on the rental invoice reported by the applicant as well as the facility usage document, which is attached to the application. The facility usage document must include similar information regarding the facility as the invoice. You may not divide the facility into smaller parts and, thus, report partial prices. 

The available allocation influences the final sum of the facility usage grant and the hourly grant, the applicant’s approved rental expenses and the calculated amount of hours, as well as the maximum hourly prices for facility usage grants, as approved by the sports sub-committee. The final facility usage grant is determined by the relative share of the applicant’s calculated grant of other facility usage grant applicants’ share of the total available allocation. 

This form of grant does not apply to ice hockey and figure skating juniors’ clearing rink shifts; do not include these costs on the application form or the facility usage document.  

A grant may be awarded to eligible applicants who have applied for the grant by the given deadline. The amount of the grant cannot exceed the amount applied for. If the applicant receives a grant for its sports activities from other branches of the city administration, Sports Services will not provide another grant for the same activities.

Grants are meant to support activities organised by the association itself and not, for example, activities acquired by the city from the association as a purchased service or activities that are otherwise supported (e.g. by means of cooperation agreements).

The application for sports facility usage grant opens at the beginning of the year and ends on February 15. Grants must be applied for within the application period specified. If an application is not submitted by the deadline, it will be regarded as late and rejected.

The grant is primarily applied for through the operating and facility usage grant application form. The same application is to be used to apply for an operating grant.

Click here(Link leads to external service) for instructions on how to use the e-services to apply for a grant and how to log in.

In exceptional cases, the grant application may be submitted to the City Register Office at City of Helsinki Register Office, Culture and Leisure Division/Sports, PO Box 10, FI-00099 City of Helsinki, Finland (street address: City Hall, Pohjoisesplanadi 11–13). Applications submitted to the City Register Office must arrive by 15.00 on the last day of the application period.

The application must be accompanied by the mandatory appendix on the use of sports facilities; see below for additional information.

An applicant applying for a sports facility usage grant must provide the previous year’s facility use data with a separate facility use appendix to be attached to the application. The calculation of a facility usage grant will be based on the information provided in the facility use appendix.

Facility use appendix(Link leads to external service) (excel, in Finnish)

Decisions on sports facility usage grants are made by the Sports Sub-committee. Decisions are expected to be made in April. The grant decisions, including the instructions for appeal, will be sent for information to all applicants.

See previous decisions of the Sports Sub-committee on the page of the Sports Sub-committee(Link leads to external service).

The grant for the use of sports facilities will be paid in accordance with the grant decision into a bank account specified by the recipient. If the recipient does not have a bank account, they must open one. The City of Helsinki will only pay a grant into a bank account in the name of the recipient. 

The facility usage grant will be paid in one instalment to those whose grant amount is less than EUR 100,000 and in two instalments to those whose grant amounts to EUR 100,000 or more.

A prerequisite for the granting and payment of the grant is that there have been no discrepancies regarding any grants awarded by the city to the recipient in previous years. The city has the right to suspend the payment of a grant until the matter has been resolved if there is reason to suspect that the prerequisites for the recovery of a grant specified in Section 10 of the general grant criteria of the City of Helsinki are met.

The city has the right to set off the grant in whole or in part against a recoverable claim from the recipient.

The grant for the use of sports facilities must be used for the purpose for which it was awarded. The grant must be used for the association’s non-profit activities. The grant must be used during the year in which it was awarded, unless otherwise specified in the decision.

The grant for the use of sports facilities is based on the actual use of facilities in the previous year and related expenses. The actual usage must be indicated in the facility use appendix. Rent receipts and lease agreements must be provided upon request. A separate report on the use of the facilities is therefore not required, unless otherwise specified in the decision.

The grant cannot be used for fundraising or for business and investment expenditure, or to increase the association’s financial assets or any other long-term investments. The grant cannot be forwarded to third parties.

The recipient must notify the City of Helsinki without delay of any significant change affecting the use of the grant.

Instructions on completing the form 2024 (Link leads to external service)(pdf, in Finnish)

Read more about the other documents governing the award, use and reporting of grants for sports on the Guidance and support page.(Link leads to external service)

The contact details of personnel providing personalised guidance on sports grants are available on the Contact details page(Link leads to external service).