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Who can register as a charity

You can register your charity with the Charity Commission, the body that registers and controls charities in England, if:

• your charity is based in England or Wales
• your charity has a minimum income of £5000 a year, eg in funds and donations
• your charity is a type of charity that has to register

Registering your charity

You can apply to register your charity on the Charity Commission website. There is a guide on the website on how to fill in the online application form. As part of the application; you’ll be asked to prove that you meet certain requirements (see ‘Before you start your charity application’).

• Register your charity with the Charity Commission Opens new window

Before you start your charity application

Before you start your application, you need to make sure you follow certain requirements and have certain documents.

Write a governing document

Together with your application you need to send in a 'governing document'. This document explains how your charity will be run. It must say:

• how your charity will spend its money
• how you choose your trustees
• how the charity will do its work

The Charity Commission has examples of governing documents that can help you write your own one (see link ‘Charity Commission sample governing documents’).

Show proof of income

As part of your application you have to send proof of your organisation’s income. For example, your latest annual accounts, a bank statement or a formal offer from someone who wants to fund you.

Explain your charitable purposes and benefit to the public

Your application must prove that your charity has ‘charitable purposes’. This means that it only does work which the law says is charitable.

Your charity’s work must also be for the public’s benefit and not for private profit. It can’t do a mix of charitable work and non-charitable work (eg helping relieve poverty and promoting a political party).

In your application you must explain how your charity works for the benefit of the wider public.

It must be clear what these public benefits are and how they are related to your aims. For example if your charity aims to help protect the environment, you must describe how the public will benefit from your work.

The following work is said to be charitable if it's for public (not private) benefit:

• preventing or relieving poverty
• advancing education
• advancing religion
• advancing health or saving lives
• advancing citizenship or community development
• advancing the arts, culture, heritage or science
• advancing amateur sport
• advancing human rights, conflict resolution or reconciliation or promoting religious or racial harmony or equality and diversity
• advancing environmental protection or improvement
• relieving those in need, by reason of their youth, age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage
• advancing animal welfare
• promoting the efficiency of the armed forces of the Crown, or the efficiency of the police, fire and rescue services or ambulance services

Choose a name for your charity

To register a charity you must have a name for it. It’s best to choose a name that’s individual, memorable and easy to say. Avoid names that are too general, eg ‘The Village Hall’. Your charity’s name must not include any words that could cause offence.

You should also check that the name isn’t already on the charity register. If your chosen name is too close to a name of a charity already registered, the Charity Commission may ask you to change it. A quick way to check this is to type the name you want into the charity search tool.

• Find a charity Opens new window

Your charity’s trustees

If you want to register your charity, you must have a board of trustees. Trustees are the people who make the main decisions for your charity about how money is spent and how you can achieve your aims.

Trustees have certain responsibilities and must be chosen carefully. You should be confident that they can carry out their duties. They can’t be paid apart from covering any expenses they might have.

As part of your application, you have to tell the Charity Commission who your trustees are. You’ll need to provide full names, addresses and dates of birth for all your trustees.

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