Enterprise Management Incentives

The April 2026 EMI reform, effective 6 April 2026, quadrupled the gross-assets ceiling from £30m to £120m, doubled the employee limit from 250 to 500, and doubled the share-option pool from £3m to £6m. HM Treasury estimates the changes will unlock roughly £100m a year across approximately 1,800 scaleups. On the same day, EIS and VCT lifetime company investment limits were doubled to £24m .

Enterprise Management Incentives is an HMRC-administered, tax-advantaged employee share-option scheme available to qualifying small and medium companies. Employees granted EMI options receive income-tax and National Insurance Contributions relief on acquisition; gains on disposal attract capital-gains rates rather than income-tax rates. The scheme was introduced to help fast-growing UK companies compete with US and European counterparts for senior technical and commercial talent without paying cash compensation they cannot afford.

The reform addresses a long-standing complaint: scaleups at Series B and c would outgrow the old £30m gross-assets ceiling before their options vested, stripping the retention tool from precisely the companies that needed it most. The new thresholds let companies carry EMI through to later funding rounds. There is, however, a policy tension: the VCT relief cut from 30% to 20%, also effective 6 April 2026 , reduces the investor appetite that funds the same scaleups EMI is now designed to retain.