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Unclaimed
Discovery tool, not advice. Every figure is the published rule, not a decision on your case.
Tax credits

Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS)

Status

Open continuously

No deadline — apply whenever you are ready.

Always open
Amount
£250,000

A company can receive a maximum of £250,000 through SEIS over its lifetime. NOTE: SEIS is an INVESTOR tax relief, not money paid to the company — HMRC gives income tax and CGT reliefs to individuals who subscribe for shares. It is recorded here as a tax_credit because SEIS status is in practice a precondition for most UK pre-seed rounds and materially improves a startup's ability to raise; the £250,000 is the cap on qualifying investment the company may take in, not a grant.

Funder

HM Revenue & Customs

public · national

Deadline: Open all year — No deadline; advance assurance can be requested at any time, and the compliance statement is filed after shares are issued.

Your odds
Not published

This funder does not publish a success rate. We rank it using the rate observed across similar programmes and label it as an estimate rather than implying we know.

Effort
major

Major bid — written case, budget, possibly partners.

Who can apply

If already carrying out a qualifying trade, it must not have been carried out for more than 3 years. Gross assets must not exceed £350,000 when the shares are issued, and the company must have fewer than 25 full-time equivalent employees. Certain trades are excluded.

How to apply

  1. Optionally apply to HMRC for advance assurance that the proposed share issue will qualify.
  2. Issue the shares to investors.
  3. Once you have carried out the qualifying trade for at least 4 months or spent at least 70% of the money raised, submit compliance statement form SEIS1 to HMRC.
  4. HMRC issues compliance certificates (SEIS3) for you to pass to investors.

What you will need

Related reading: How grant deadlines actually work · The EU SME definition (Recommendation 2003/361)

Apply on the funder's site

Source. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/venture-capital-schemes-apply-to-use-the-seed-enterprise-investment-scheme

"You can receive a maximum of £250,000 through Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme."

Verified on 14 August 2026

Source: www.gov.uk

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Paid, separate from Unclaimed

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