If you’re a registered charity in England, Wales or Northern Ireland with fundraising costs of £100,000 or more, you will need to pay our annual levy to register. The levy is a voluntary contribution to support the cost of our work.
There are many good reasons for paying the levy.
Charities that pay the levy are demonstrating their commitment to the Code of Fundraising Practice and the Fundraising Promise. They are also agreeing to our terms and conditions.
Charities that fall within the levy that choose not to demonstrate their commitment to good fundraising will be identified in our directory.
How much you pay
The levy is based on your reported fundraising expenditure. There are different bands according to the amount spent:
Higher education institutions and arm’s-length bodies pay a flat rate levy of £1,000.
From September 2019 onwards, some charities may notice a difference in the amount they pay compared to previous years. If you want to know more about the recent changes to the levy, click here.
Definition of fundraising expenditure
We define fundraising expenditure as the costs incurred by the charity in getting third parties to make contributions to it for its charitable purposes and any other costs related to fundraising purposes. This includes the costs of:
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staging events, including performance fees and licence fees;
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seeking donations, grants and legacies;
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operating membership schemes and social lotteries;
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advertising, marketing and direct mail materials including publicity costs not associated with educational material designed wholly or mainly to further the charity’s purposes; and
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contracting with agents to raise funds on behalf of a charity.
We also include a relevant proportion of organisational overheads and support costs for eg governance, IT, finance, accommodation and HR.
Our definition includes the cost of all staff a charity employs to undertake fundraising activity. These staff can be engaged in public or private fundraising.
We exclude fundraising expenditure on trading activities, paying fees for investment advice or portfolio management.