SEIS and EIS, explained plainly.

The Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme gives investors in very early-stage UK companies 50% income tax relief on up to £200,000 invested per tax year, plus no capital gains tax on the shares if they’re held for at least three years. Your company can raise up to £250,000 in total under SEIS.

The Enterprise Investment Scheme is SEIS’s bigger sibling for growing companies. Investors get 30% income tax relief on up to £1 million a year (£2 million if at least £1 million goes into knowledge-intensive companies). From 6 April 2026 a company can raise up to £10 million a year and £24 million in its lifetime under EIS, or £20 million and £40 million if it’s knowledge-intensive.

Broadly, your company needs to be UK-based with a permanent establishment here, unquoted, carrying on a qualifying trade that started less than three years ago, with gross assets of no more than £350,000 and fewer than 25 full-time equivalent staff before the share issue. It also can’t have raised EIS or VCT money before. Some trades are excluded, such as property development, banking and money-lending, legal and accountancy services, and running hotels or care homes.

For shares issued from 6 April 2026, gross assets must be no more than £30 million before the share issue and £35 million straight after, with fewer than 250 full-time equivalent staff (500 for knowledge-intensive companies). Your first commercial sale should normally be within the last seven years, or ten for knowledge-intensive companies. The same excluded trades apply as for SEIS.

It’s HMRC’s view, given before you raise, that your planned share issue is likely to qualify for SEIS or EIS. It isn’t a legal requirement and it isn’t a guarantee, but most angel investors won’t commit without it, so in practice it’s the first thing to sort before you start pitching.

Yes. Lots of companies do, because they plan to use their £250,000 SEIS allowance first and then raise more under EIS. One combined application covers both, which is why our SEIS and EIS bundle costs £199 rather than £298.

HMRC doesn’t publish a fixed turnaround and it changes with their workload. Across the applications we’ve submitted, the average has been 2 to 4 weeks from the day we send the application to HMRC. A clean, complete application is the biggest thing you can control, and that’s the part we do for you.

Our team has worked on thousands of SEIS and EIS applications, and 98% of the applications we submit are approved. That track record is why we can offer a 100% money back guarantee.

Very little. You send us your pitch deck, any financials or forecasts you have, and the details of your planned raise. We check you qualify, edit the deck where HMRC is likely to push back, write the application and checklists, submit it as your agent and answer any questions HMRC sends. You review and approve before anything goes in.

A deck written for investors and a deck read by HMRC are judged differently. Phrases like low risk, guaranteed returns or a planned exit to a named buyer can cause problems with the risk-to-capital rules, and vague use-of-funds slides slow things down. We make those edits for you as part of the fee, so HMRC sees a version that answers their questions first time.

HMRC won’t give advance assurance on purely speculative applications, so it helps to have at least some potential investors identified. They don’t need to have signed anything. If you’re not there yet, tell us and we’ll advise on timing.

After you’ve issued shares to investors, your company files a compliance statement with HMRC: form SEIS1 for SEIS shares or EIS1 for EIS shares. Once HMRC accepts it, they authorise you to issue SEIS3 or EIS3 certificates, which your investors need to claim their tax relief. Our compliance service handles the statement, the investor details and the certificates.

For SEIS, once you’ve spent at least 70% of the SEIS money or the company has been trading for at least four months. For EIS, once the company has been trading for at least four months. There are also deadlines, broadly two years after the end of the tax year the shares were issued, so it’s worth not leaving it too late.

If HMRC hasn’t approved your advance assurance within 60 days of us submitting your application, we refund 100% of what you paid for it. The 60 days start on the day we submit to HMRC, and the timer pauses while HMRC are waiting on further information from you. To claim, just email us within 14 days after the 60 days end. Full terms apply.

No. It’s our honest first read based on your deck and your answers, but only HMRC can approve you. If the check says yes, you’re also covered by our money back guarantee once we’ve submitted.