How Much You Can Raise, the SEIS and EIS Investment Limits Explained

How much you can raise is one of the first questions any founder asks about SEIS and EIS, and it has more moving parts than the headline numbers suggest. There are limits on what the company can raise, separate limits on what an individual investor can claim relief on, and rules about how SEIS, EIS and other state-aided funding count against a combined lifetime ceiling. This article is part of our SEIS and EIS series, sitting beneath the flagship pillar, the complete SEIS and EIS founders guide at /guides/seis-eis-guide-uk-startups/.

It works alongside two companion articles: SEIS versus EIS and the key differences founders must know, at /blog/seis-vs-eis-key-differences-founders-must-know/, and the explanation of whether founders and family can benefit under the 30% connected-person rule, at /blog/founders-family-seis-30-percent-connected-person-rule/. Read together they cover which scheme applies, who can invest, and, here, how much can flow through.

It is essential to separate two different ceilings that founders often confuse. The first is the company limit: the total amount the company is allowed to raise under each scheme. The second is the investor limit: the maximum amount on which a single investor can claim income tax relief in a tax year. A round can be constrained by either, so you need to track both when you size and price it.

A company can raise a maximum of £250,000 in total through SEIS. This is a lifetime cap, not an annual one, so once a company has raised £250,000 of SEIS it cannot raise any more under the scheme, ever. The cap covers all SEIS investment combined, across every SEIS round the company runs.

Because the SEIS cap is modest and one-off, most founders use it in a single seed round to maximise the 50% relief on offer to early angels, then graduate to EIS for anything larger. Spending the SEIS allowance carefully matters, since it cannot be replenished.

EIS is far larger. A company can raise up to £5,000,000 per year through EIS and other state-aided risk-finance investment, and up to £12,000,000 over its lifetime. For knowledge-intensive companies the limits are higher: up to £10,000,000 per year and £20,000,000 over the lifetime. The annual figure is measured over a rolling twelve-month period, not a tax year, so the timing of share issues matters.

Crucially, the lifetime limit is a combined figure. SEIS investment, EIS investment, Social Investment Tax Relief and certain other risk-finance state aid all count towards the same lifetime ceiling. So the £250,000 of SEIS a company raises early reduces the headroom available under the EIS lifetime limit later.

Separate from the company ceilings, each investor faces an annual cap on the amount of investment they can claim income tax relief on. Under SEIS, an investor can claim 50% relief on up to £200,000 invested per tax year. Under EIS, an investor can claim 30% relief on up to £1,000,000 invested per tax year, rising to £2,000,000 per tax year where at least the amount above £1,000,000 is invested in knowledge-intensive companies.

These are personal limits, so they apply across all the SEIS or EIS investments an individual makes in a year, not per company. An angel who has already used their full SEIS allowance elsewhere cannot claim further SEIS relief on your round that year, even though your company still has SEIS headroom.

Both schemes allow an investor to carry back relief to the previous tax year, treating the shares as if issued in that earlier year. This effectively lets an investor use two years of personal allowance across a single investment, which can matter for a large subscription late in a tax year. Carry-back is an investor-side timing tool and does not change the company-level limits, but it is worth flagging to investors because it can make a larger ticket affordable for them.

When a company runs SEIS and EIS together, sequencing and dates govern the limits. SEIS shares must be issued before EIS shares where both reliefs are claimed, because the SEIS investment must be in place first. The SEIS raised counts against the £250,000 SEIS cap and the combined lifetime cap; the EIS raised counts against the EIS annual and lifetime caps.

A simple way to picture a blended seed round is below. The figures are illustrative and assume the company is within all eligibility tests.

• Issue £150,000 of SEIS shares first: counts towards the £250,000 SEIS cap, investors claim 50% relief.
• Then issue £600,000 of EIS shares: counts towards the £5m EIS annual cap, investors claim 30% relief.
• Total raised in the round: £750,000, with SEIS headroom of £100,000 left for a future SEIS issue.
• All £750,000 also counts towards the company combined £12m lifetime cap.

The company limits do not sit in isolation; they are tied to age windows. For EIS, the company first risk-finance investment must generally be received within seven years of its first commercial sale, ten years for a knowledge-intensive company. Once that initial investment is made inside the window, follow-on funding can continue beyond it, but the first relief-bearing money has to land in time. A company that waits too long after its first sale to raise EIS can find the door closed even though it is still well under the financial limits. This is why founders who expect to use EIS plan the first round deliberately rather than drifting into it.

Knowledge-intensive companies (KICs) get more generous limits across the board because they typically need more capital over a longer period. A KIC can raise up to £10,000,000 of EIS per year and £20,000,000 over its lifetime, can be up to ten years old at the time of the share issue rather than seven, and can have up to 500 employees rather than 250. Investors in KICs can also claim EIS relief on up to £2,000,000 a year, provided the amount above £1,000,000 goes into KICs. Whether a company meets the KIC conditions is a technical test best confirmed with an accountant.

The limits are generous, but they reward planning and punish improvisation. The points below are the ones that most often shape how founders size and stage their rounds.

• Use the SEIS £250,000 early, when the 50% relief is most valuable, rather than dribbling it across several rounds.
• Remember the EIS annual limit is a rolling twelve-month figure, so two large issues close together can breach it.
• Track the combined lifetime cap: SEIS plus EIS plus other state aid all count against the £12m (or £20m for KICs) ceiling.
• Confirm each investor has personal allowance left, since the company cap and the investor cap are independent.
• Get advance assurance before marketing, so investors can rely on the eligibility of the round.

Most early companies hit the SEIS cap first, simply because £250,000 is reached quickly in a successful seed round. The EIS annual limit becomes the binding constraint for fast-scaling companies raising several million a year, and the lifetime limit eventually caps total EIS-backed fundraising. Knowing which ceiling you are approaching tells you when to switch schemes, when to pace your issues across twelve-month windows, and when EIS fundraising must give way to non-relief capital.

The investment limits also shape the commercial shape of a round, not just its tax treatment. Because the SEIS cap is a hard £250,000, a founder cannot simply raise more SEIS to avoid dilution; once the cap is reached, further capital must come from EIS or non-relief sources at whatever valuation the market supports. Sizing the SEIS portion against the equity you are willing to give up at seed valuations is a balancing act, and it interacts with the connection rules covered in the companion article at /blog/founders-family-seis-30-percent-connected-person-rule/. Treat the limits as constraints on the cap table as much as on the tax position.

The investment limits are the arithmetic backbone of any SEIS or EIS round, and the cost of getting them wrong is investors losing relief they were promised. The company caps, the investor caps and the combined lifetime ceiling all have to be tracked together, and the interaction with sequencing, carry-back and the KIC uplifts adds further detail. Because the figures and conditions can change and the rules are intricate, use this article as a map and confirm the specifics with an accountant before you set the size of your round.

For the complete framework, including advance assurance and the compliance certificates investors need to claim, read the flagship pillar at /guides/seis-eis-guide-uk-startups/, and see the companion articles on the scheme differences and the connected-person rules.