Potential claimants of the grant have been emailed with personal claim dates which start from next week. Eligible self-employed workers can apply for the grant anytime from their claim date until 1 June 2021.

The fourth self-employment grant covers lost or reduced earnings from February to April, offering up to 80% of trading profits or £7,500 over three months. The details of the grant were announced in the Budget in March.

To apply, you’ll need to ‘reasonably believe there is a significant reduction in your trading profits due to coronavirus between February 2021 and April 2021, and that you intend to continue to trade’.

If you claim, you must keep appropriate records as evidence of the impact on your business.

How to claim the fourth SEISS

Eligible self-employed workers can claim the money online at Gov.uk.

To confirm your eligibility and make your claim, you’ll need your:

• National Insurance number
• self-assessment unique taxpayer reference (UTR) number
• Government Gateway user id and password
• bank account number and sort code
• address

Eligibility of the SEISS grants has been widened to include about 600,000 people who became self-employed in the 2019-20 tax year. These workers were excluded from previous grants as you needed to have filed a tax return for 2018-19 to apply.

If this is your first time claiming a SEISS grant, you may be asked additional questions to prove your identity.

Questions could relate to any of the following:

• your UK passport
• information held on your credit file (such as loans, credit cards or mortgages)
• your self-assessment tax return (within the past three years)
• your tax credit claim
• your P60
• one of your three most recent payslips

Once your claim for the SEISS grant has been approved, the money should be in your account within six working days.