Employment-Related Securities Bulletin 67: July 2026

HMRC have released Employment-Related Securities (ERS) Bulletin 67, which focuses on accessibility improvements to the ERS end of year templates, guidance and technical notes from 6 April 2027.

Line of workers

End of year template accessibility improvements from 6 April 2027

To make sure that HMRC documents are compliant with accessibility regulations, HMRC are reviewing the Employment-Related Securities (ERS) end of year return templates, guidance and technical notes.

  • HMRC are not changing the actual reporting requirements for the end of year templates.

Until 5 April 2027, you can continue to use the current versions of the ERS end of year return templates to report ERS activity for any tax year. 

  • From 6 April 2027, employers reporting ERS for any tax year will need to use the updated end of year return templates, technical notes and guidance pages.
    • HMRC will reject any returns submitted on the older templates.

To help you prepare for this change, HMRC will publish new versions of the end of year return templates, technical notes and guidance pages in November 2026.

  • This will give you five months' notice to make any changes to non-standard templates you use to submit ERS end of year returns.

As part of the review, HMRC will be making changes to the ERS checking service and the ERS submission service.

  • This will allow you to use the new templates with these services.

HMRC will publish more information about these changes in future bulletins.

Timetable for the changes

The planned timetable for this update is as follows (these dates may be subject to change).

Date Update
1 November 2026 The following new versions of the ERS end of year return templates will be published on GOV.UK alongside the current versions. From 6 April 2027, HMRC will remove the current versions.
Template Current version New version
Company Share Option Plan (CSOP): before the 2023-24 tax year Version 4 Version 6
CSOP: from the 2023-24 tax year Version 5 Version 7
Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI) Version 4 Version 7
Share Incentive Plan (SIP) Version 4 Version 7
Save As You Earn (SAYE) Version 4 Version 7
Non-tax advantaged share schemes: previously known as 'Other' Version 4 Version 7
 
1 February 2027

HMRC will update the ERS checking service to allow employers to check the new versions of the ERS end of year return templates.

  • You will not be able to check new templates before this date.
  • You will still be able to check the current templates in the service until 5 April 2027.
6 April 2027

HMRC will remove the current end of year return templates, supporting guidance and technical notes from GOV.UK.

From this date:

  • You must submit any ERS activity for any tax year on the new templates.
  • HMRC will not accept any reports using older templates.

Changes to the end of year templates

To make the templates more accessible, HMRC will:

  • Simplify the sheet titles.
  • Format sheets as tables, with appropriate headers.
  • Remove guidance notes in the templates, and replace them with links to relevant GOV.UK guidance. 
  • Remove abbreviations, replacing 'e.g.' with 'for example' and '£' with 'pound'.
  • Standardise the font to Arial, size 12.
  • Remove line spacing between the question numbers and questions.

Changes to the guidance and technical notes

HMRC will be making changes to the guidance and technical notes to reflect the accessibility changes in the end of year templates.

If you create your own templates in ODS format, your template headings must match the relevant technical notes. For example, you will need to make sure that:

  • Upper and lower case lettering matches the template.
  • Date formats are shown in the same format as the template.
  • You do not use abbreviations instead of the wording shown in the template.
  • You spell everything correctly,

External link

Employment related securities bulletin 67 (July 2026)