£5.5bn paid in fourth SEISS grants

HMRC figures indicate that £5.5bn has been paid out for SEISS claims to support the self employed deal with loss of earnings due to the pandemic.

The claims window for grant four closed on 1 June 2021. The final tranche of the SEISS grant will be released at the end of July although claim rules have changed slightly with claimants now required to meet a turnover test for grant five. The qualification criteria have also been expanded to include earnings from 2019-20 tax returns.

For the fourth SEISS grant the average value per claim was £2,800. Around two-thirds of the potentially eligible population are male (2.3m). The average claim for females is lower at £2,200 compared to the average claim for males of £3,100.

The sector with the highest number of potentially eligible individuals and the highest proportion of claims is the construction industry. By 6 June, construction workers had made 647,000 claims for the fourth grant, totalling £2.2bn. Construction is the largest sector among the self-employed population with 1.2m individuals assessed for eligibility.

Of the 1.6m that did not meet one or more of the SEISS eligibility criteria, 1.4m (85%) had trading profits less than non-trading profits (eg, income from employment, investment or other income sources), 500,000 (32%) had trading profits of £0 or made a loss and 200,000 (11%) had trading profits over £50,000.