National Lottery Heritage Grants is our funding programme for all types of heritage projects in the UK.

Use this guidance to apply for grants from £250,000 to £10m.

You must first submit an Expression of Interest and, if you are successful, we will invite you to apply.

Your application will usually go through two phases: a development phase of up to two years, enabling you work on your project proposal, and a delivery phase of no more than five years. If you think a two phase application is not right for your project, please contact your local office to discuss.

Is this the right programme for you?

Is your organisation looking to care for and sustain heritage in the UK?
Will your heritage project run for no more than five years (excluding the development phase)?
Do you require a grant of between £250,000 and £10m?
Are you a not-for-profit organisation or a partnership led by a not-for-profit organisation?
Does your project take into account our four investment principles?

If you answered yes to these questions, then National Lottery Heritage Grants could be for you.

Our investment principles

Four investment principles guide all our grant decision making under our 10-year strategy, Heritage 2033:

saving heritage
protecting the environment
inclusion, access and participation
organisational sustainability

You must take all four principles into account in your application. The strength of focus, and emphasis on each principle, is for you to decide and demonstrate.

The investment principles, and our strategic initiatives, will help us achieve our ambitions for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone’s future.

Things you need to know

Your project must not start before we make a decision.
You must first submit an Expression of Interest to tell us about your idea, and we will let you know if you are invited to apply.
Deadlines for development and delivery applications are quarterly
Once we receive your application and all the correct supporting documents, we will assess your application within 12 weeks and, following assessment, it will be assigned to the next scheduled decision meeting.
For grants under £1m, you must contribute at least 5% of your project costs. For grants over £1m, you must contribute at least 10% of your project costs.
Payments for development grants under £250,000 are made in three stages: 50% in advance, 30% in advance, and then 20% in arrears. Payments for development grants over £250,000, and all delivery grants, are made in arrears.
We provide lots of good practice guidance. We recommend that you read the guidance that is relevant to you to help you develop and manage your project.
We may consider applications for over £10m for truly exceptional heritage projects. If this applies to your project, you should contact your local office to discuss this.