Transfer your unspent levy funds

levy transfers

If you pay into the apprenticeship levy, you can transfer any unused funds to other businesses. We can work with you to gift your levy funds to employers that share your values and goals

Transferring unused funds can benefit your business

Transferring levy funds is a great way to support other businesses by deciding which sectors, skills, or local areas you’d like to fund. It’s completely up to you and your business who, or what, you choose to support – for example you might want to support the care sector, or fund apprenticeships in a particular town in your area.

How much can I transfer?

You can transfer 50% of your previous financial year’s apprenticeship levy funds. The apprenticeship service calculates this amount as 50% of:

  • the total amount of levy you declared in the previous tax year

  • with the English percentage applied (the percentage of your employees that live in England)

  • plus the top-up payment of 10% from the government.

You cannot transfer more than your 50% allowance in each financial year.

What can the levy transfer pay for?

They can only be used for apprenticeship training and assessments, and up to the maximum of the funding band for that apprenticeship.

They can also only be used for a new apprentice. That doesn’t mean they have to be a new employee, just that they can’t already be on an apprenticeship.

There is one exception to this – if an apprentice changes employer, they can continue their apprenticeship funded by a transfer of levy funds.

Understanding the Apprenticeship Levy Transfer Scheme

  • The UK government launched the apprenticeship levy in April 2017 for all employers paying a wage bill of over £3m per year. Eligible employers must pay 0.5% of their payroll each month as a levy tax, with this money used to support apprentices into the workplace.

    Since April 2019, a levy-pi0ng employer can transfer 25% of their levy funds to another employer to be used to train an apprentice. Any unspent monies in levy funds is lost and returned to the Treasury.

  • Apprenticeships can be funded by a levy paying employer transferring up to 50% of their unused levy to a different employer. Transferred funds are used to pay for 100% of the training and assessment costs of the apprenticeship up to the funding band maximum.

  • The levy transfer scheme is traditionally designed to support SME businesses that are not paying the levy and do not have access to additional levy funding to help develop and train their teams. However, funds can be transferred to any business regardless of size.

  • Yes – when the donating employer links to the receiving employer through the apprenticeship Service (AS) to enable the transfer it will display the name of the donating employer and both parties must accept the connection on the DAS