Country guide

Startup credits in the United Kingdom

A startup registered in United Kingdom can apply to 1335 programs we track: 935 credit programs and 400 accelerators. 128 more are restricted to other countries, and they are named below.

London ranks second only to the Bay Area on most startup ecosystem tables, and that has an awkward side effect: founders here assume they are covered and skip the eligibility line entirely. Usually they are right. The times they are not tend to be the expensive ones.

This page is the check. It sets out what a company registered at Companies House can apply for today, and it names the programs whose terms point somewhere else, so the discovery happens here instead of on the last screen of a form.

Which programme you get into matters as much as where you are registered, because the largest cloud tiers open on a partner referral rather than on a country. The UK bench is unusually deep there, from Seedcamp and Techstars London at the investor-backed end to free, equity-free networks such as Barclays Eagle Labs and the NatWest Entrepreneur Accelerator.

Check what you qualify forBrowse all United Kingdom programs

What your entity needs to be

A private limited company registered at Companies House is what these programs mean by a registered company, and it satisfies the entity requirement on almost everything we track. Keep the company number, the registered office address and a business bank account to hand, because that is the level of detail the forms ask for. Sole traders are the common miss: the programs are built around an entity that can hold an account and sign terms, so registering first removes the argument. Buying a US parent company purely for credits is rarely the right trade before you have US customers or investors, because the filing and accounting overhead recurs every year while the credits arrive once.

Open to British startups

The largest programs with no country restriction blocking you.

Closed to British startups, and why

These set a country allowlist that does not include United Kingdom. We list them so you do not spend an evening on an application that cannot succeed.

Accelerators based in United Kingdom

Questions founders here ask

As a rule, yes. The self-serve tiers ask for a registered company, a working product and a business email, and a Companies House registration answers all three. The count on this page is computed from the eligibility rules we hold rather than from a marketing page.

Not for the credits. Re-incorporating becomes a real question when US investors are leading your round, and at that point it is a fundraising decision with its own professional advice attached. Choosing it for credit access alone has the reasoning backwards.

Only as a tiebreak. Partner referral genuinely is what opens the six-figure cloud tiers, so the benefit is real, but a programme you would not otherwise join costs more in equity, time or both than the credits give back.

Looking for accelerators instead?

Credits and accelerator programs are judged on different rules, so they have their own list.

Startup accelerators in the United Kingdom

Other countries

PakistanUnited Arab EmiratesIndiaNigeriaUnited StatesCanadaSingaporeGermanyKenya

New programs open to United Kingdom, by email

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