EMI options: set up properly, valued with HMRC, and kept alive year after year.

The scheme got substantially bigger. Gross assets rose from £30 million to £120 million, the employee limit from 250 to 500, and the maximum exercise period from 10 years to 15. The individual limit did not move — it is still £250,000 of options per employee over any three-year period. In short, companies that had outgrown EMI mostly have not any more.

Often yes. The longer window can apply to live, unexercised options, provided the option is exercised on or after 6 April 2026 and, for fixed-date options, the written amendment is made in time. For a company whose early grants are approaching their tenth anniversary this is worth looking at now rather than at the point they lapse.

£2,950 + VAT to set up, which includes the share valuation agreed with HMRC rather than charging for it separately, and £295 + VAT a year afterwards for the annual return. Quoted in writing before we start.

You do not have to, but you should, and almost everyone does. An agreed valuation gives you certainty that the exercise price was right, which is what protects the tax treatment for your employees. Agreed valuations are only valid for 90 days, so it has to be sequenced with the grants rather than obtained speculatively.

For options granted from 6 April 2024, notification is due by 6 July following the end of the tax year in which they were granted. Miss it and the options are not EMI options — they become unapproved, with income tax and potentially National Insurance on exercise instead of capital gains treatment on sale. It is the most expensive diary entry in the whole scheme.

They must work at least 25 hours a week for the company, or if less, at least 75% of their total working time. That second limb is what lets genuinely part-time people qualify, and it is regularly misread as a blanket full-time requirement, excluding people who would in fact be eligible.

Some are. A Northern Ireland company trading in goods or wholesale electricity keeps the old £30 million gross assets limit and the 10-year exercise window, and cannot use the retrospective extension. If that is you, plan against the old numbers.

Register the scheme and file an annual employment-related securities return by 6 July, including a nil return in a year where nothing happened. Missing returns generate penalties for a scheme that may have had no activity at all, which is a galling way to spend money.