Two-thirds of self-employed people eligible to claim the second SEISS grant made a claim in the application window that closed on 19 October 2020

Monthly HMRC statistics for the second grant also show that the value of claims reached £5.9 billion

Two-thirds of self-employed people who were eligible to claim the second Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) grant have made a claim, according to new HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) figures.

In updated experimental monthly statistics for the SEISS published today, HMRC reports that of the 3.4 million self-employed individuals who were identified as potentially eligible for the SEISS scheme, 2.3 million (67 per cent) had claimed a second grant by 31 October 2020, with the value of these claims totalling £5.9 billion and averaging £2,500 per claim.

NB - the second SEISS grant was open for applications between 17 August 2020 and 19 October 2020 and payments were worth 70 per cent of average monthly trading profits, paid out in a single instalment covering three months’ worth of profits, and capped at £6,570 in total.

In addition, the statistics provide a comparison of how many individuals claimed both the first and second SEISS grants by 31 October 2020, only the first grant, or only the second grant, and show that -

• of the 2.7 million individuals that had claimed either the first or second SEISS grant or both, 2.3 million individuals (86 per cent) claimed both grants, 319,000 (12 per cent) claimed only the first grant, and 61,000 (2 per cent) only claimed the second grant;
• claims for the first grant totalled £7.6 billion and claims for the second grant totalled £5.9 billion, giving a combined total of £13.5 billion for both; and
• the average claim for the first grant for those claiming both grants (£2,900) is slightly lower than for those only claiming the first grant (£3,000) while, in contrast, the average claim for the second grant for those claiming both grants (£2,500) is higher than for those only claiming the second grant (£2,100).

Self-Employment Income Support Scheme statistics: November 2020 is available from gov.uk