Express Program Guidelines
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SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
Expanded access and increased funding now available—effective April 1, 2026. Learn more
The Express Program provides employers fast, simple access to grant-funded training, helping businesses in Massachusetts respond to emerging needs.
Express Program Guidelines & Requirements
Eligibility
- Grant funds are limited to $15,000 per company per calendar year, $300 per instructional hour, and $3,000 per employee per course. Businesses are responsible for covering additional costs beyond these caps out-of-pocket.
- Massachusetts businesses with 100 or fewer Massachusetts W-2 employees may apply. In order to qualify, businesses must pay into the Workforce Training Fund. All for-profit companies pay into the fund.
- “Massachusetts businesses” are defined as companies with work being performed in Massachusetts that have an office, factory, warehouse or other physical location in Massachusetts owned or leased by the company. Neither employees’ home addresses nor P.O. boxes can be counted as locations for this purpose. However, locations owned or leased by company ownership can be counted as locations for this purpose. Only companies that meet this definition and all other program guidelines can be approved for a Workforce Training Fund grant.
- All trainees must be full-time or part-time payroll employees of the company receiving an Express Program grant and must be employed in Massachusetts. (Trainees are not required to live in Massachusetts.)
- All applicants should be prepared to submit a Certificate of Good Standing (COGS) from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. All COGS must have the business’s full legal name and a Notice Date within 6 months from the date of application submission. Click here to obtain your COGS from the Department of Revenue.
- All applicants should be prepared to submit a Certificate of Compliance from the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance (DUA). This certificate must have the business’s full legal name, FEIN, explicitly verify WTFP contributor status, and not be expired. Click here to learn how to obtain your Certificate from the Massachusetts DUA.
- All applicants should be prepared to submit a signed Form W-9 listing the full legal business name and FEIN of their business. The W-9 should be dated within a year of the date of application submission.
- Contractors or employees of other firms (e.g., temps) are not eligible to participate in grant-funded training.
- Eligible employers are encouraged to apply at any time for funding that is right sized to their current needs. Companies with 100 or fewer employees working in Massachusetts may apply and receive more than one Express Program grant at a time, up to a total of $15,000 in new grant funds per calendar year.
Reimbursements
- Reimbursement requests for approved training expenses must have four components to be reviewed:
- Reimbursement form (Page 2 of reimbursement document) – filled in completely, including information at the top, and signed by an authorized company representative.
- List of trainees.
- Training Provider Invoice that has the name of the course you took as shown on your Express Service Agreement, the training provider name, and the name of the business being billed.
- Proof of Payment
- Acceptable forms of proof of payment include: copy of bank statement, copy of cancelled check, copy of credit card statement/credit card activity (screenshots accepted), copy of QuickBooks statement or another accounting software showing the transaction was made and the payment cleared. See examples here.
- For our purposes, payment for training has not been made if money loaned to a grantee by the training provider was used to pay training expenses, and any part of the loan remains outstanding. Until any payment agreements between grantees and training providers for grant-funded training are fully satisfied, we do not consider payment complete and grant funds will not be released.
- Instructions for submitting a reimbursement request with documentation can be found here.
- Businesses with 100 or fewer Massachusetts employees may receive up to 100% reimbursement for an approved course if the course is within $300 per instructional hour, and $3000 per person course. Any training costs exceeding these limits are the responsibility of the grant recipient.
Training
- Training should not begin before the Express Service Agreement start date.
- The Express Service Agreement start date is automatically set to be 21 days from the date of application submission. The end date is automatically set to be 1 year minus 1 day from the start date. There is no ability to change start and end dates within these parameters.
- Each training course should be completed within the timeframe entered in the application. Please notify us if your training schedule changes so we can update our record. All approved training must be completed within 12 months of the Express Service Agreement start date.
- On the Express Program application, within the Express Service Agreement start and end date-, businesses may indicate a course start date no later than 6 months from the date of application submission.
- Employees participating in Express-funded training should not have previously participated in the same or similar training that was funded by a previous Workforce Training Fund grant, awarded through either the Express or General Programs, until a minimum of five years have passed since the closeout of the grant that contained that training. Grant recipients are responsible for continued investment in training necessary to maintain new capabilities gained via grant funded training.
- Note: an exception will be made for employees participating in WTFP-funded English for Speakers of Other Languages, or ESOL, courses. Eligible employees are permitted to attend an ESOL course that they have previously taken under a past grant made through the Express or General Programs within the past five years.
- Courses that a company is legally mandated to provide to its employees are not eligible for reimbursement under this program (e.g., OSHA).
- Applicants may only select courses that are listed on the Express Course Directory. However if you are interested in selecting a course that is not currently registered, you may wish to encourage the training provider to register the course.
- Employees must be paid at their regular pay rates during training hours.
- Live, synchronous, instructor-led virtual or remote training is permitted, but employees must attend training on paid time. Assignments or pre-work should also be completed on paid time.
- Express-funded workplace English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) training is most commonly conducted fully during working hours. However, trainees may volunteer to take part in workplace ESOL training on their own time (i.e. off the clock). A minimum of 50% of employees’ time spent in ESOL training must be on company time and paid at their regular rate.
- For a grantee to qualify for reimbursement of the full amount awarded for a course, the full amount of training time listed under “Total Training Hours” in the approved course listing selected by the grantee must be delivered. Full price should not be charged by the provider, nor accepted by the grantee, for delivery of fewer training hours than is listed under “Total Training Hours” in the approved course. The program may consider approving reimbursement of a prorated portion of training fees based on actual time spent in training if fewer total training hours were delivered than what was approved in the service agreement.
- Grant funds cannot be used to pay for services provided by a member of immediate family of any company owner, investor, or employee. Thus, third-party training providers selected on an Express application cannot employ a member of the immediate family of any company owner, investor, or employee. The immediate family includes spouse, parents and grandparents, children and grandchildren, siblings, mother-in-law and father-in-law, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, daughters-in-law and sons in law, and step members.
- Grant funds cannot be used to pay for services provided by someone with ownership stake in the company that received the grant. Thus, a third-party training provider selected on an Express application cannot have an ownership stake in the company receiving grant funds.
- Commonwealth Corporation makes no endorsement regarding the quality of the training providers/courses listed in the directory. Businesses must conduct their own research and are responsible for confirming course availability and pricing with their selected training providers prior to submitting an application.
- Commonwealth Corporation does not offer the training listed in the directory ourselves, nor do we coordinate training (e.g., sign up, start and end dates, etc.) on behalf of the providers listed in our directory.