Deadline for submission
Where you are required to send us an Annual Return and accounts, you must submit them within ten months from your financial year end. Our guidance on What information must trustees send us this year? explains what documents you need to send us.
The deadline for submission is calculated as follows. The ten month period after a given financial year end date always ends on the same date in the appropriate month. This means that a charity with a financial year end of 30 September has until midnight on 30 July not 31 July to submit its Annual Return and, if required, accounts.
If there is no corresponding date, the last day of the month will apply. For example, a charity with a financial year end of 30 April has until midnight on 28/29 February of the next year to submit its documents.
Many charities consistently file returns and accounts well in advance of the ten month deadline. This deserves recognition and we now give greater prominence to a charity's compliance history on the Register of Charities on our website. Most charities now submit their documents on time.
See details on the Commission's File Early campaign.
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to complete your Annual Return and/or submit your TAR and accounts |
Late or non-submission
The Register of Charities shows charities that have not submitted on time as having 'Documents overdue' until we receive them. This may affect donations and funds from other sources. Charities failing to file on time are exposed to a risk of negative publicity because their Register entry shows submissions for the last five years and highlights those that are late.
Although there is no statutory deadline for submitting an Annual Update, smaller charities will still be shown as having documents overdue until we receive a form or information for that year confirming changes to their details including income and expenditure.
If charities persistently fail to submit their documents to confirm that they are still operating, we may remove them from the Register of Charities.
The advanced search feature of the Register of Charities allows users to search for charities with their latest documents overdue. A full list of the charities that have documents overdue, sorted by their postcode area, can also be found here.