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General Export Facility

Access trade finance facilities typically worth up to £25 million – fulfil multiple export contracts, pay for labour costs and build inventory to boost your exports.

80% guarantee

Provides a guarantee for up to 80% of the facility

More flexibility

No need for the facility to be tied to a specific export contract

Release working capital

Can support cash facilities or bonding and letter of credit lines

How it works

Designed for SMEs, the General Export Facility can help you increase your export volumes when you need extra cash to take on new orders or develop your exports.

We provide a guarantee to your bank, helping you access a range of trade finance facilities to help grow your business. With maximum repayment terms of up to 5 years we can support:

  • cash facilities such as trade loans
  • contingent obligation facilities such as bonding and letter of credit lines

The General Export Facility is designed for smaller exporters: read how MIA Sports arranged a £75,000 finance facility to support their expansion into Dubai. For corporate facilities over £25 million, the Export Development Guarantee may be more suitable.


 

Eligibility

You must be able to show that either:

  • in any one of the last three financial years, at least 20% of your annual turnover has been made up of export sales
  • in each of the last three financial years, at least 5% of your annual turnover has been made up of export sales

Participating banks can automatically provide our guarantee for applications meeting certain criteria.

How to apply

Complete our contact form to discuss an application.

FAQs

  • What does GEF stand for in export finance?
    GEF stands for General Export Facility.

  • What is the General Export Facility?
    The General Export Facility is a guarantee that UKEF provides to a bank, helping it to offer trade finance facilities to a UK exporter. These facilities can include flexible working capital loans, or contingent liability facilities such as contract guarantees (for example advance payment, performance, or tender bonds).

  • How does a trade finance facility differ from a loan?
    Trade finance facilities can mean a range of banking products that can support international trade. These include working capital loans, invoice finance, where a lender provides funding against unpaid invoices, and risk management products such as bank guarantees and standby letters of credit. Such guarantees are often required under international contracts to provide assurance that contractual obligations will be met.

  • Is the GEF available for small businesses?
    Yes. The General Export Facility is designed primarily for small and medium sized businesses that are exporting, subject to meeting lender and UKEF eligibility criteria. UKEF doesn’t set a minimum business size. This would be decided by the participating lenders.

  • What are the key benefits of using a GEF?
    A GEF effectively means having the UK government as your guarantor when you go to your bank for support. This naturally increases a lender’s appetite to provide you with trade finance, by sharing risk with UKEF. This can improve access to these facilities for the exporter. However, businesses still need to be creditworthy and there needs to be a lender with appetite to lend the amount required, as they will retain 20% of the credit risk.