You must be actively trading and have a permanent establishment in the UK
You must have fewer than 250 full-time employees when the EMI options are granted
Your company must have £30 million or less in gross assets
You must not have already allocated over £3 million worth of EMI shares
You must not be owned by a parent (holding) company or under the control of another company
If you have a subsidiary company, it must also meet the EMI qualification requirements
You must notify HMRC within 92 days of granting the options
Your company must not carry out a substantial amount of the ‘excluded activities’. You can find the list of excluded activities at the gov.uk website
To see the full list of EMI rules, head over to the HMRC manual for EMI schemes.