Tools · AgriMarketing eligibility
Will AgriMarketing pay for market research?
Yes, and it is the activity the program is most clearly built for.
Market research is named among the activities the Market Diversification stream funds, alongside trade strategy, missions, translation, legal advice on a distribution agreement, and trademark protection in the target market.
It is also the activity that most improves the rest of an application. The fifth eligibility criterion asks you to demonstrate that the project targets new opportunities in high-growth potential and non-traditional markets. Demonstrate, not assert. Research produces evidence about the market; a narrative produces intent about the company, and the program is assessing the first.
The sequencing trap applies here more than anywhere else. Research is the natural first thing to do and the first thing companies pay for, which means it is routinely bought before an application exists, at which point it is neither reimbursable nor counted toward your own share.
Read next
- The AgriMarketing Program: seventy-five million dollars, and what it will actually pay for
A new five-year funding envelope opened to applications in February 2026, it names the Indo-Pacific as a priority, and it covers fish and seafood explicitly. The numbers, the dates and the cost-share rule that decides whether you can use it at all.
- What export funding will not pay for, and the dates that decide it
Most funding money is lost to two rules nobody reads: a cost incurred on the wrong date is ineligible however well it fits the program, and a cost that is not tied to a specific named market is ineligible however genuinely it advances the export plan.
The other activities
A trade show booth
DependsTranslation, and label artwork for a market
EligibleLegal advice and trademark protection
DependsCertification obtained to enter a market
DependsYour own staff time
Not eligibleDeveloping or reformulating a product
Not eligibleA new website or brand refresh
Not eligibleEquipment, software or plant
Not eligibleWork on a market your sector already sells to
This does not answer CanExport
CanExport SMEs is the other federal program exporters ask about, and it is not covered here. Its rules live on a Government of Canada host that refuses requests from our infrastructure.
Every answer we gave would come from memory rather than from a page we opened and dated.
That is a worse outcome than an absence.
A funding answer is acted on by somebody about to commit money, and the two programs differ on cost share, on who is eligible and on what counts as a fundable activity.
We would rather tell you the gap exists.
Read from
- AgriMarketing Program, Market Diversification for SMEs: 1. What this program offers. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, read 25 September 2026
- AgriMarketing Program, Market Diversification for SMEs: 2. Eligibility. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, read 25 September 2026