Am I SEIS / EIS eligible?
UK angels essentially won't invest without SEIS or EIS relief — it's 50% or 30% of their money back from HMRC. But eligibility turns on a specific set of rules about your company's size, age, trade, shares and investment history. Answer a short questionnaire and we'll tell you, in plain English (with the detailed HMRC rule behind each point), where you stand for both schemes — before you apply for Advance Assurance.
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Nothing is uploaded or stored — the check runs entirely on your device. Answer what you can; leave anything you're unsure of as "Not sure" and we'll flag it to confirm.
Company size & age
Roughly the total value of everything the company owns (before the new investment lands). Both schemes are for genuinely small/early companies, so there's a ceiling.
The detailed rule
Measured immediately before the shares are issued. SEIS: ≤ £350,000. EIS: ≤ £15m before, and ≤ £16m immediately after the investment.
How many full-time-equivalent people the company employs. Part-timers count as a fraction; directors count.
The detailed rule
SEIS: fewer than 25 FTEs. EIS: fewer than 250 (or fewer than 500 for a knowledge-intensive company). Measured at the date of the share issue.
How long the company (or a business it acquired) has actually been trading. SEIS is only for the very newest companies.
The detailed rule
SEIS: the qualifying trade must be less than 3 years old at the date of the SEIS investment. (This is separate from the EIS 'first commercial sale' test below.)
When the company first sold something commercially. EIS has a maximum age measured from this point, not from incorporation.
The detailed rule
EIS: the first commercial sale must have been less than 7 years ago (10 years for a knowledge-intensive company) at the date of the first risk-finance investment. Later rounds can extend this in limited cases.
Investment limits & history
How much SEIS money the company has already taken. There's a lifetime cap.
The detailed rule
SEIS lifetime limit: £250,000 total. Anything already raised counts against it.
All the tax-advantaged/state-aid risk-finance money the company has ever raised (SEIS, EIS, VCT and similar), which shares one lifetime pot for EIS purposes.
The detailed rule
EIS lifetime limit: £12m of risk-finance state aid (£20m for a knowledge-intensive company), and ≤ £5m in any rolling 12 months (£10m KIC).
SEIS has to come first. If EIS or VCT money has already gone in, the SEIS door is closed (EIS may still be open).
The detailed rule
A company cannot raise SEIS after it has received EIS or VCT investment. SEIS must precede any EIS/VCT on the company's timeline.
Trade & structure
Most normal trades qualify, but a list of activities is excluded (finance, property, land, energy generation, hotels/care homes, farming, etc.). See the list on this page.
The detailed rule
The trade must be conducted on a commercial basis for profit and must not consist 'substantially' (broadly more than 20%) of excluded activities. The same excluded-trade list applies to SEIS and EIS.
See the excluded (non-qualifying) trades
- Dealing in land, commodities, futures, shares, securities or other financial instruments
- Financial activities — banking, insurance, money-lending, debt-factoring, hire-purchase finance
- Legal or accountancy services
- Property development
- Leasing or letting assets on hire, or receiving royalties / licence fees (limited exceptions for your own IP)
- Farming, market gardening, forestry or timber production
- Operating or managing hotels, guest houses, nursing or care homes
- Generating or exporting electricity, or producing heat, gas or fuel (most subsidised-energy activities)
- Coal or steel production, and shipbuilding
- Providing services to another company that carries on any of the above and is under common control
The company must stand on its own — it can't be a subsidiary controlled by another company (subsidiaries you control are fine, within limits).
The detailed rule
At the share-issue date the company must not be under the control of another company (or another company plus connected persons), and must not be a 51% subsidiary of another company. Its own subsidiaries must generally be 51%+ owned and qualifying.
The company needs a real, permanent presence in the UK.
The detailed rule
There must be a UK permanent establishment throughout the relevant period. The company need not be UK-incorporated, but must have a fixed UK place of business or a UK-based agent concluding contracts.
Shares & purpose
The investor has to take real risk — plain ordinary shares, paid for in cash, with no special protections. Preference shares or safety nets break eligibility.
The detailed rule
Shares must be new, full-risk ordinary shares, paid up in full in cash at issue, carrying no present or future preferential right to dividends or to assets on a winding up, and no redemption rights. They must be held for at least 3 years.
The scheme is for companies raising to grow, where investors could genuinely lose their money — not asset-backed or tax-motivated arrangements.
The detailed rule
The 'risk-to-capital' condition (from 2018): viewed as a whole, the company must be raising to grow and develop long-term, and there must be a significant risk of loss of capital greater than the net tax relief. Capital-preservation / asset-backed structures fail.
Knowledge-intensive company (optional — EIS only)
A special EIS category for R&D-heavy companies. It relaxes the EIS age, employee and money limits — but has its own tests.
The detailed rule
KIC status extends EIS: first commercial sale up to 10 years, up to 500 employees, up to £10m/year and £20m lifetime, and up to £2m investor relief. Requires meeting R&D/innovation spend thresholds AND either creating qualifying IP or having ≥20% of staff in skilled R&D roles with a master's-level qualification.
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A plain-English eligibility indicator — not tax advice, and not a substitute for HMRC's Advance Assurance process or a qualified SEIS/EIS adviser. Eligibility depends on facts a short form can't fully capture (group structure, use of funds, connected persons). Thresholds shown are as of 2026.