You can claim before, during or after you process your payroll as long as your claim is submitted by the relevant claim deadline. You cannot submit your claim more than 14 days before your claim period end date.

When making your claim, you:

• do not have to wait until the end date of the claim period for a previous claim before making your next claim
• can make your claim more than 14 days in advance of the pay date (for example, if you pay your employee in arrears)

The earliest you can make a claim for May 2021 is 19 April 2021.

Claims must be submitted by 11.59pm 14 calendar days after the month you’re claiming for. If this time falls on the weekend or a bank holiday then claims should be submitted on the next working day.

Claim for furlough days in	Claim must be submitted by
November 2020	14 December 2020
December 2020	14 January 2021
January 2021	15 February 2021
February 2021	15 March 2021
March 2021	14 April 2021
April 2021	14 May 2021
May 2021	14 June 2021
June 2021	14 July 2021
July 2021	16 August 2021
August 2021	14 September 2021
September 2021	14 October 2021

If you have missed the claim deadline

For claim periods from 1 November, HMRC may accept late claims if you have (all of the following):

• a reasonable excuse
• taken reasonable care to try and claim on time
• claimed without delay as soon as you were able to

You may have a reasonable excuse if for example:

• your partner or another close relative died shortly before the claim deadline
• you had an unexpected stay in hospital that prevented you from dealing with your claim
• you had a serious or life-threatening illness, including Coronavirus related illnesses, which prevented you from making your claim (and no one else could claim for you)
• a period of self-isolation prevented you from making your claim (and no one else could make the claim for you)
• your computer or software failed just before or while you were preparing your online claim
• service issues with HMRC online services prevented you from making your claim
• a fire, flood or theft prevented you them from making your claim
• postal delays that you could not have predicted prevented you from making your claim
• delays related to a disability you have prevented you from making your claim
• an HMRC error prevented you from making your claim

If you’ve missed the claim deadline and meet one of the reasonable excuses, make a request to submit a late claim. You should do this as soon as you’re ready to make your claim but only after the claim deadline has passed.

If you’ve claimed the wrong amount

Find out what to do if you’ve claimed too much from the scheme.

Find out what to do if you’ve not claimed enough from the scheme.

After you’ve claimed

Once you’ve claimed, you’ll get a claim reference number. HMRC will then check that your claim is correct and pay the claim amount by BACs into your bank account within 6 working days.

You must:

• keep a copy of all records for 6 years, including:

• the amount claimed and claim period for each employee
• the claim reference number for your records
• your calculations in case HMRC need more information about your claim
• for employees you flexibly furloughed, usual hours worked including any calculations that were required
• for employees you flexibly furloughed, actual hours worked

• tell your employees that you have made a claim and that they do not need to take any more action
• pay your employee their wages, if you have not already

You must pay the full amount you are claiming for your employee’s wages to your employee. You must also pay the associated employee tax and National Insurance contributions to HMRC, even if your company is in administration. If you’re not able to do that, you’ll need to repay the money back to HMRC.

You must also pay to HMRC the employer National Insurance contributions on the full amount that you pay the employee. If you have submitted a claim for the employer National Insurance contributions and pension contributions, then the full amount you claim in respect of these must be paid or you will need to repay the money back to HMRC.

Employers cannot enter into any transaction with the worker which reduces the wages below the amount claimed. This includes any administration charge, fees or other costs in connection with the employment. Where an employee had authorised their employer to make deductions from their salary, these deductions can continue while the employee is furloughed provided that these deductions are not administration charges, fees or other costs in connection with the employment.

When the government ends the scheme

When the scheme closes, you must decide to either:

• bring your employees back to work on their normal hours
• reduce your employees’ hours
• terminate their employment (normal redundancy rules apply to furloughed employees)

Tax Treatment of the Coronavirus Job Retention Grant

Payments you’ve received under the scheme are to offset the deductible revenue costs of your employees. You must include them as income when you calculate your taxable profits for Income Tax and Corporation Tax purposes.

Businesses can deduct employment costs as normal when calculating taxable profits for Income Tax and Corporation Tax purposes.

Individuals with employees that are not employed as part of a business (such as nannies or other domestic staff) are not taxable on grants received under the scheme. Domestic staff are subject to Income Tax and National Insurance contributions on their wages as normal.