Where to learn the schemes, what is worth paying for,
and why post-raise compliance is the gap most founders miss
The most important thing to say before recommending any resource is that the EIS rules changed materially on 6 April 2026 under the Finance Act 2026, announced in Autumn Budget 2025. Most free founder guides online, and a significant proportion of paid courses and recorded webinars, still quote the old limits. Reading a resource produced before April 2026 without knowing this is worse than reading nothing, because the old numbers are plausible enough to be believed.
| Limit | Before 6 April 2026 | From 6 April 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| EIS annual company raise limit | £5m | £10m |
| EIS lifetime company raise limit | £12m | £24m |
| EIS annual raise — knowledge-intensive companies | £10m | £20m |
| EIS lifetime raise — knowledge-intensive companies | £20m | £40m |
| EIS gross assets pre-investment | £15m | £30m |
| EIS gross assets post-investment | £16m | £35m |
| EIS income tax relief rate | 30% | 30% (unchanged) |
| VCT income tax relief rate | 30% | 20% (reduced) |
| SEIS — all limits | Unchanged. £250,000 company lifetime limit, £200,000 investor annual limit, £350,000 gross assets test, three-year age limit all remain as they were. | |
FounderCatalyst has a clear, current plain-English write-up of the 2026 changes: foundercatalyst.com/blog. Start there if you want to understand what shifted and why before diving into any course material.
Most founders do not need a comprehensive SEIS and EIS education. They need to understand enough to run a clean raise, avoid the most common mistakes, and know when to hand off to a specialist. This path gets you there without overinvesting in learning the schemes themselves rather than running your business.
The Buckworths startup guide to SEIS and EIS runs repeatedly, is free, and covers the basics clearly — SEIS versus EIS, advance assurance, raise limits, and common pitfalls. Do this first to establish a working vocabulary before anything else. It is content marketing from a law firm, which it says so openly, and the material is genuinely good.
Once you have the vocabulary, go to gov.uk and read the official company-facing guidance for SEIS and EIS. This is the authoritative source, it is free, and it is current. No third-party resource should be relied on in place of it for anything consequential.
SeedLegals and FounderCatalyst both offer free guides, templates, and calculators that are practical rather than educational. Use these when you are actively preparing an application or working through your qualifying conditions. They are not substitutes for professional advice on eligibility.
The Intelligent Partnership accreditation is the only formally assessed, industry-endorsed qualification on SEIS and EIS. It is built for advisers and investors rather than founders, which means it covers the qualifying conditions in more rigour than most founders need. It is worth doing if you want to understand whether your company qualifies without delegating that assessment entirely to an adviser. It is not worth doing to learn how to run the raise itself.
SEIS and EIS are the tax mechanism. The harder problem for most first-time tech founders is the raise itself: investor targeting, pitch narrative, data room, term sheet, and closing. If that is where you are stuck, a structured cohort programme addresses it more directly than scheme-specific education.
This is where most guides stop and where most founders get into trouble. SEIS and EIS relief is provisional. Investors lose it if your company breaches qualifying conditions after the money lands — moving into an excluded activity, taking funding in a way that constitutes a disqualifying arrangement, or failing to spend the capital on a qualifying business activity within the required period. Read the section on post-raise compliance at the end of this paper before you close your first round.
Everything in this section is free at time of writing. Prices and availability are confirmed as of August 2026. Check before relying on any link, particularly for cohort programmes which open and close on a rolling basis.
The authoritative source. Company-facing guidance on SEIS qualifying conditions, what to do before applying for advance assurance, and links to the compliance statement (SEIS1) process. Updated 25 May 2023 — note that the EIS equivalent was updated 6 April 2026 with the new limits. This is the primary reference, not a supplement to it.
EIS company guidance, updated 6 April 2026 to reflect the Finance Act 2026 changes. Covers the new £10m annual and £24m lifetime limits, the updated gross assets thresholds, and the knowledge-intensive company definitions. Any resource that contradicts these figures is out of date.
The official advance assurance guidance covering what the service is, when to apply, what to include, and what HMRC does and does not commit to by issuing assurance. Note that assurance is discretionary and non-statutory, no right of appeal exists, and HMRC will not process speculative applications — a named prospective investor is required. The digital application is made via Government Gateway.
Free self-paced e-learning, EISA-endorsed. Frames the material from an adviser and investor perspective rather than a founder perspective, which means it covers the qualifying conditions thoroughly — useful for founders who want to understand how investors and advisers evaluate eligibility, rather than just the headline numbers. Check the publication date against the April 2026 EIS changes before relying on any specific limits.
Free download. Contributors include the EISA Director General. Content marketing from a legal-tech platform, which it is upfront about — and the material is a genuine and well-structured founder-facing guide rather than a sales brochure. Check publication date against the 2026 EIS changes. The SEIS-specific content should be current regardless.
On-demand recordings covering the practical mechanics of running a SEIS or EIS raise — advance assurance, tax-year-end timing, structuring the pitch, and approaching angels. More tactical than the ebook and worth working through once you have the fundamentals. Verify any EIS-specific figures are post-April 2026.
Free, no signup required. Practically oriented rather than educational — useful when you are actively working through an advance assurance application or checking post-raise compliance. Particularly strong on the post-raise side, which is where most resources stop and where most founders get into trouble. Also has a current write-up of the April 2026 EIS changes.
Runs repeatedly, free, live and recorded. Covers SEIS versus EIS, advance assurance, raise limits, compliant round structure, and common pitfalls. This is content marketing from a law firm — it is transparent about that, and the material is among the best free introductory content available for founders. A good first step before anything else. The recording is available at the link below if you cannot attend a live session.
Broader than the SEIS-specific webinar, covering sources of investment, how the reliefs work in practice, investment documentation, and live Q&A. Some sessions are in-person, some virtual, and some are delivered in partnership with Google. Check the events page for current dates.
Panel recording with Antler, Bloom Money, and Focal. Investor-facing rather than founder-facing in framing, which makes it particularly useful for understanding how angels and early-stage investors actually think about SEIS before they commit to a round.
The EIS Association is the trade body for the schemes. Founder and investor events, a knowledge hub, and heavily subsidised entrepreneur membership for companies that already hold advance assurance or have completed a raise. Not a starting point for learning the basics, but valuable once you are inside a round and want sector-level community and current intelligence on the schemes.
Sixteen modules, a final assessment, and a certificate on completion. EISA endorses this as the industry standard for structured learning on the schemes. It is built primarily for advisers and investors rather than founders, which means it covers the qualifying conditions and compliance obligations in more rigour than most founders need — but that rigour is also its value. If you want to assess your own qualifying status without relying entirely on an adviser, this is the only assessed route that exists. Available at a discount for EISA members.
On the £245 course: it is the only rigorous, assessed option available and EISA endorses it. For most founders the free Buckworths webinar plus gov.uk guidance covers what they need to run a clean raise. The paid course earns its cost if you want to do the qualifying conditions analysis yourself rather than delegate it, or if understanding the compliance obligations deeply is commercially important — for example, if you are planning multiple rounds and want to manage the EIS conditions internally rather than through advisers each time.
SEIS and EIS are the tax wrapper around the raise. For many first-time tech founders the harder problem is the raise itself — how to find the right investors, how to pitch, how to structure a round, and how to get from a warm conversation to a signed term sheet. These programmes address the full raise end-to-end, with SEIS and EIS as one component of a broader investment readiness curriculum.
All three programmes listed below include live cohort interaction, mentorship, and structured learning. Cohort dates rotate — check current availability before building them into a fundraising timeline.
Free one-to-one investment readiness support from Innovate UK's growth specialists, open to innovative businesses whether or not they have received Innovate UK grant funding. Covers funding and finance strategy, investment readiness, and growth planning. Note: as of August 2026, new requests into the service are paused as part of Innovate UK's current planning cycle. Check the link for current status before relying on this as an option in your timeline.
Free six-week structured programme for London-based pre-seed and seed founders. Delivered with Mountside Ventures and focused on diverse founder communities. Cohort dates rotate — check the Funding London programmes page for current openings. This is one of the better structured free programmes available in London and worth tracking if you are London-based and in the right stage.
Free 12-week programme for pre-seed, pre-customer tech founders. Structured learning portal, mentorship, and a demo day at completion. One of the most substantive free programmes available — the 12-week depth is unusual for a free offering and the focus on pre-customer stage means it is genuinely appropriate for very early founders rather than those who already have traction. Wales-based: check eligibility requirements before applying.
On regional coverage: the Funding London and Tramshed Tech programmes are geographically restricted. If you are outside London and Wales, neither is accessible. Check Enterprise Nation's events programme for nationally available webinar-based alternatives and the Buckworths seminar series, which runs online and is UK-wide.
The resources in this paper have focused on helping you understand the schemes well enough to raise under them. But SEIS and EIS relief is not confirmed at the point of advance assurance, and it is not confirmed when the money lands. It is confirmed provisionally when you issue the SEIS1 or EIS1 compliance statement, and it remains subject to ongoing conditions your company must continue to satisfy for three years after the investment is made.
Most founder-facing educational resources stop at the raise. This section does not, because this is where most founders get into trouble.
Your solicitor or tax adviser should walk you through the specific conditions your company must satisfy for the duration of the three-year holding period. Do not wait until the compliance statement is due. Understand the conditions before the shares are issued so you know what you need to avoid doing.
The SEIS1 and EIS1 compliance statements are submitted to HMRC after the shares are issued. HMRC aims to respond to most advance assurance applications within 15 working days but complex cases can take up to 40 working days. Do not submit a compliance statement before shares are issued — HMRC will reject it. Track the timeline carefully so investors can claim relief in the correct tax year.
The capital raised under SEIS must be employed within three years of the investment date in a qualifying business activity. Keep a clear record of how the funds are spent. If your deployment timeline shifts materially from what was described in your advance assurance application, take advice before assuming the change is compliant.
FounderCatalyst's free resources are among the best available specifically on post-raise compliance. The FounderCatalyst SEIS and EIS section at foundercatalyst.com/seis-eis covers the ongoing conditions in plain English and is worth bookmarking for the three years following your close.
This paper does not constitute financial or tax advice. Eligibility for SEIS and EIS is determined by HMRC based on the specific facts of each company and investment. Take qualified professional advice before issuing shares under either scheme and before relying on any specific figures or conditions described here.
BlazingRed Limited provides board advisory and fractional commercial services for AI, software and technology companies. This Red Paper is provided for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax or legal advice.
blazingred.co.uk | hello@blazingred.co.uk | 020 4514 6333
August 2026. All links and resource availability verified as of publication date. Cohort programme dates and resource availability are subject to change — verify before relying on any specific programme in a fundraising timeline.