Businesses under 500 employees now considered SMEs
03 October 2022
In a press release from 2 October 2022, it was announced that businesses with under 500 employees will be classed as Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) for certain business regulation exemptions.
The EU defines businesses up to 249 employees as SMEs, however, the government has taken the step to cut red tape and increase this to 499.
This new threshold will apply from today (3 October 2022) and applies to all new regulations under development and review, including retained EU law. It is noted that these are not blanket exemptions and may be overridden in some cases.
The government plans to consult and expand the threshold up to businesses with 1,000 employees, once the impacts of the current expansion are known.
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