Angel investing, SEIS and EIS, explained

Plain explanations of how the UK schemes actually work, written and checked against HMRC primary sources. Every figure carries the tax year it applies to and the date it was last checked. Investing at this stage can lose you everything you put in.

Start here

Where to start

If you are investing

What the reliefs do to a tax position, what the risk actually is, and what happens at the end.

All investor guides

Line drawing of an investment, the relief carved out of it and the net cost

If you are raising

What qualifies a company, what the paperwork chain is, and what a round does to ownership.

All founder guides

Line drawing of ownership before and after a funding round

Everything in the library

Every guide

Two separate objects. Above, a stack of sixteen rules standing for the statutory list of excluded activities, with the two a given trade touches marked in the margin. Below and apart from it, a single bar standing for the whole of that trade, with the excluded share filling the left of it and stopping short of a line drawn at twenty per cent — the proportion HMRC says it will normally accept as not substantial. The test is measured on the trade, not on how many of the sixteen categories are touched, which is why the two are drawn as separate things.

Reference

Company qualification

Excluded activities: is what your company does an excluded trade?

7 min

Published

3 Aug 2026

C02

Two separate objects. Above, a stack of sixteen rules standing for the statutory list of excluded activities, with the two a given trade touches marked in the margin. Below and apart from it, a single bar standing for the whole of that trade, with the excluded share filling the left of it and stopping short of a line drawn at twenty per cent — the proportion HMRC says it will normally accept as not substantial. The test is measured on the trade, not on how many of the sixteen categories are touched, which is why the two are drawn as separate things.

Reference

Company qualification

Excluded activities: is what your company does an excluded trade?

7 min

Published

3 Aug 2026

C02

Two separate objects. Above, a stack of sixteen rules standing for the statutory list of excluded activities, with the two a given trade touches marked in the margin. Below and apart from it, a single bar standing for the whole of that trade, with the excluded share filling the left of it and stopping short of a line drawn at twenty per cent — the proportion HMRC says it will normally accept as not substantial. The test is measured on the trade, not on how many of the sixteen categories are touched, which is why the two are drawn as separate things.

Reference

Company qualification

Excluded activities: is what your company does an excluded trade?

7 min

Published

3 Aug 2026

C02