Coronavirus Self-Employed & Small Limited Company Help

Here's what you need to know about the first grant (the one you can currently claim for):

• The first grant is worth up to 80% of your trading profits. It's capped at £2,500 a month and is taxable. As it's a grant, you don't need to pay it back.
  
  
• Grants are based on your profits over three tax years. This is based on an average of the tax returns for 2016/17, 2017/18 and 2018/19.
  
  
• You must have filed a tax return for 2018/19. This means you must have been self-employed prior to 6 April 2019. The last possible moment to file a 2018/19 tax return was Thursday 23 April (the deadline had been extended from 31 January 2020). If you only had a few months' self-employment on your 2018/19 return, this will be counted as your total profit for the year – the Government won't pro-rata it based on your monthly profits.
  
  
• You must earn more than 50% of your total income from self-employment. This must have been the case for either your 2018/19 tax return or, if not, the average of your 2016/17, 2017/18 and 2018/19 tax returns. Income from property, dividends, savings, pensions and taxable benefits all count as "non-trading income" and to qualify for the SEISS. The total of these combined must NOT exceed 50% of your total income. For more information on which benefits count as "taxable income", see our full list here.
  
  
• Your average trading profit must be less than £50,000/year. This is essentially a 'cliff-edge' requirement – so those whose average annual trading profit is more than £50,000 (to be specific, £50,000.01 and above) won't be able to get any support from this scheme.
  
  For both these requirements, the Government says it will first check your 2018/19 tax return – if you met the requirements that year, you'll be eligible.
  
  However, if you earned more than £50,000 (or earned less than half of your income from self-employment) in 2018/19, the Government will then check your 2016/17 and 2017/18 tax returns, if you filed them for those years. If on average over the three years you earned less than £50,000 and made more than half your income from self-employment, you'll still be eligible.
  
  
• By now, you should have been contacted if you're eligible for the scheme. If you're eligible for the scheme, HMRC should have contacted you either by letter, text or email. If you believe you're eligible but you've not heard from HMRC, use its eligibility tool to check if you're eligible and, if necessary, arrange an application appointment.
  
  
• You need to apply by 13 July 2020 for this first grant. The second grant will open for applications in August.
  
  
• Unlike the employee scheme, here you CAN keep working. You do not need to prove coronavirus impact, though you will need to declare your business has been impacted. HMRC is introducing checks to prevent fraud.
  
  
• You can also apply for and get universal credit (SEISS doesn't make you ineligible). But once you start receiving self-employed income support too then this will be classed as income, meaning the amount of universal credit you receive will decrease. But you will NOT have to pay back previous months of universal credit because of your SEISS payment. If you can wait, in some cases it could be worth delaying your SEISS application to maximise your universal credit award. We have all the details in our Coronavirus benefits guide here.