Claim wages through Coronavirus DWP Job Retention Scheme

Claim for some of your employee’s wages if you have put them on furlough or flexible furlough because of coronavirus (COVID-19).
From 1 September, the government will pay 70% of wages up to a maximum cap of £2,187.50 for the hours the employee is on furlough. Employers will top up employees’ wages to ensure they receive 80% (up to £2,500). The caps are proportional to the hours not worked. You can read more information about the changes.

Unless you’re making a new claim for an employee who is a military reservist or is returning from statutory parental leave, you can only continue to claim through the scheme if:

you have previously furloughed the employee for 3 consecutive weeks between March 1 and 30 June
you submitted your claim before 31 July
If you’re an employee you cannot claim for yourself, instead you should check if your employer can use the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

Use this service to:

claim for your employees’ wages
save and continue a claim (within 7 days of starting it)
delete a claim (within 72 hours of submitting it)

What you’ll need To make a claim, you will need:

to be registered for PAYE online
your UK bank account number and sort code (only provide bank account details where a BACS payment can be accepted)
the billing address on your bank account (this is the address on your bank statements)
your employer PAYE scheme reference number
the number of employees being furloughed
each employee’s National Insurance number (you will need to search for their number using basic PAYE Tools if you do not have it, or contact HMRC if your employee has a temporary number or genuinely has never had one)
each employee’s payroll or employee number (optional)
the start date and end date of the claim
the full amounts that you’re claiming for including:
employee wages
employer National Insurance contributions (for claims up to 31 July)
employer minimum pension contributions (for claims up to 31 July)
your phone number
contact name

You also need to provide either:

your name (or the employer’s name if you’re an agent)
your Corporation Tax unique taxpayer reference
your Self Assessment unique taxpayer reference
your company registration number

If you’re claiming for employees that are flexibly furloughed, you’ll also need:

the number of usual hours your employee would usually work in the claim period
the number of hours your employee has or will work in the claim period
you will also need to keep a record of the number of furloughed hours your employee has been furloughed in the claim period
It is important that you provide the data we need to process your claim. Payment of your grant may be at risk or delayed if you submit a claim that is incomplete or incorrect.

Using an agent to do PAYE online
If you use an agent who is authorised to do PAYE online for you, they will be able to claim on your behalf.

If you’re using an agent you must:

get their agent ID (your agent can get this from their HMRC online service for agents account under ‘authorise client’)
be enrolled for PAYE online for employers
give them your UK bank account details (only provide bank account details where a BACs payment can be accepted)
If you would like to use an agent, but do not have one authorised to do PAYE online for you, you can do that by accessing your HMRC online services and selecting ‘Manage Account’.

You can also use this service to remove authorisation from your agent if you do not want it to continue after they have submitted your claim(s).

If you’re putting 100 or more employees on furlough
For claim periods starting on or after 1 July, you can download a template if you’re claiming for 100 or more employees and upload this when you claim.

Using this template will help ensure your claim is processed quickly and successfully. Your template may be rejected if you do not give the information in the right format.

How to claim

You’ll need the Government Gateway user ID and password you got when you registered for PAYE online.

If you do not finish your claim in one session, you can save a draft. You must complete your claim within 7 days of starting it.

If you want to delete a claim in the online service, you must do this within 72 hours of starting it.

Online services may be slow during busy times. Check if there are any problems with this service.

Claim now

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 on October 31, 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.

How to report grant payments in Real Time Information
Find out how to report Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme grant payments on Real Time Information submissions.

If you have not claimed enough
If you made an error in your claim that has resulted in receiving too little money, you will still need to make sure you pay your employees the correct amount. You should contact HMRC to amend your claim and as you are increasing the amount of your claim, we may need to conduct additional checks.

Before 31 July, you must:

make sure to include all eligible employees on claims that you still need to make for periods up to 30 June
make any updates you need to on claims you’ve already made
After 31 July, you will:

no longer be able add an employee to any existing claims for periods up to 30 June, that should have been included on a claim submitted before that date
still be able to make amendments for any other errors that resulted in you not claiming enough