Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme: Overpayments
The question
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what proportion of overpayments under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme have been recovered since 2020.
Answered by Treasury
The final estimate of the error and fraud rate across the lifecycle of the three HMRC Covid-19 support schemes; Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) and Eat Out to Help Out is between 3.3 per cent and 7.4 per cent, corresponding to a value between £3.3 billion and £7.3 billion, with a most likely estimate of £5.0 billion.
HMRC’s compliance effort on the COVID-19 schemes has prevented the payment of or recovered the overpayment of over £1.7 billion worth of grants, which is made up of £430 million prevented from being paid out and £1.3 billion recovered from overpayments.
Of the overall £1.3 billion recovered from overpayments, up to the end of March 2026 £928.94 million relates to CJRS recoveries.
Additional details on the methodology and approach to error and fraud within the schemes has been published previously and can be found here:
Error and fraud in the COVID-19 schemes: methodology and approach (an update for 2023) - GOV.UK
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