My Charity Commission Account: Setup + Troubleshooting

What My Charity Commission Account is

Big charities have an operations team that owns the regulator login. At my charity it’s me, usually in the evening — I set up our My Charity Commission Account myself and file our annual return through it, so this guide is written for the person actually holding the login. My Charity Commission Account (MyCC) is the secure online login that trustees and administrators use to manage a charity’s record with the Charity Commission for England and Wales. Since the Commission moved all core services online, it is the only route to file an annual return, update trustee lists, change your registered address, or submit accounts.

MyCC replaced the old “charity email address and password” system with an individual login model. Every person who needs to act for the charity, whether that is the treasurer filing accounts or the chair updating contact details, needs their own personal account that is then linked to the charity’s record. This is different from a shared inbox login, and it is the root cause of most of the setup confusion charities run into.

The account itself sits within the Commission’s wider digital service, alongside the public register of charities that anyone can search. What you enter through MyCC updates what the public sees on your charity’s register page, so accuracy matters beyond compliance box-ticking; funders and the public use that register to check your charity is legitimate and up to date. MyCC is also the front door to most of the filings in our charity compliance handbook, so getting access sorted early pays off all year.

First-time setup, step by step

Setting up MyCC for the first time takes about 10 minutes if you have the charity’s registered number and the email address already on file with the Commission to hand. Use a personal work email rather than a generic inbox, since the account is tied to you as an individual, not to the charity as an organisation. When I set mine up, what mattered most was the email matching what the Commission already held — mismatches sit behind half the problems below.

1. Go to the Commission’s account service and choose to create a new My Charity Commission Account using your own name and a personal or work email address.
2. Verify your email by clicking the link sent to your inbox within a reasonable window; these links expire, so do this promptly.
3. Set up two-factor authentication, usually via a code sent to your phone or an authenticator app. Keep a note of any backup codes offered at this stage.
4. Link your account to the charity by entering the charity’s registered number. If you are already listed as a trustee or contact on the register, this step is quick; if not, you will be asked to verify your role.
5. Confirm your role (trustee, chief officer, agent, or authorised contact) so the Commission knows what you are permitted to do on the account.

Once linked, you will see your charity’s dashboard, including its filing history, outstanding actions and a summary of the details currently on the public register.

Adding trustees and delegating access

More than one person can access a charity’s MyCC record, and for any charity above the smallest size this is strongly recommended so filing does not depend on a single individual. Each additional trustee, staff member or agent needs to create their own individual account and then be linked to the charity, rather than sharing one login and password.

To add someone, an existing account holder with sufficient permissions requests that the new person be linked as a trustee or contact. The new person then creates their own MyCC account (following the setup steps above) using their own email address, and the link is confirmed once their details match what is held on the charity’s record. This usually means their name needs to already appear as a trustee on the register, or the Commission needs some form of verification that they act for the charity.

Good practice for most small charities is to have at least two people with account access: typically the chair or a lead trustee, plus the treasurer or an administrator who handles filing. This avoids single points of failure when the one person who “does the Commission stuff” is on leave, unwell, or has left the charity, which leads straight into the most common problem below.

From experience: MyCC access is a resilience question more than a technology one. The two checks I would run at any small charity today: can a second current trustee actually log in and see the charity’s record, and does the annual return deadline live in a shared calendar rather than in one person’s head? Half an hour spent on those two removes most of the ways charities get locked out at exactly the wrong moment.

The 7 most common problems (and fixes)

The seven problems that generate the most support queries are wrong or lost email access, expired verification links, lost two-factor devices, “we can’t find your charity,” former contacts blocking access, multiple trustees with conflicting logins, and browser or cookie issues. Each has a specific, known fix rather than requiring a full support ticket in most cases, and in my own experience the fix is almost always duller than the problem sounds.

Problem	Likely cause	Fix
Verification email never arrives	Spam filter, or typo in email address at sign-up	Check junk folder; if still missing, restart sign-up with the correct address rather than repeatedly resending
Lost access to 2FA phone/device	New phone, lost SIM, uninstalled authenticator app	Use backup codes saved at setup, or go through the Commission’s account recovery route
“We can’t find your charity”	Your name is not yet listed as a trustee on the register, or details do not match exactly	Ask an existing trustee with access to add you, or contact the Commission to verify your role
Previous contact still has sole access	Former trustee, treasurer or member of staff never handed over the login	See dedicated fix below; you will usually need to contact the Commission directly
Two trustees, one keeps getting logged out	Each person needs their own separate account, not a shared one	Set up individual accounts for each trustee rather than sharing credentials
Link in email has expired	Verification and invite links are time-limited	Request a fresh link rather than clicking an old one from an earlier email
Page won’t load or keeps erroring	Browser cache, cookies, or an unsupported browser	Clear cookies, try an up-to-date browser (Chrome, Edge or Firefox), or try a private/incognito window

Filing your annual return through MyCC

Filing your annual return through MyCC means logging in, selecting your charity’s dashboard, and working through the return’s sections on income, spending, activities and trustee declarations before submitting. Most charities with income under £500,000 answer a shorter set of questions than larger charities, but everyone confirms trustee details and answers the compliance questions.

Before you start, gather your year-end accounts, your trustee list with any changes during the year, and answers to the standard governance questions (safeguarding policy, conflicts of interest, and so on) — our annual return prep checklist lists the lot. When I file ours, the form is the quick part; the gathering eats the evening, so I keep a running note of trustee changes and policy reviews through the year. The Charity Commission gives you 10 months from your financial year end to file your annual return, so a charity with a 31 December year end has until 31 October the following year, and a charity with a 31 March year end has until 31 January. Filing late, or not at all, is itself recorded on your public register page and can affect funder trust, so treat the deadline as fixed rather than flexible.

For a full walkthrough of every question on the return, see our annual return walkthrough. If you have already missed a deadline, our guide on what happens if you miss your annual return deadline covers what the Commission does next and how to get back on track. Charities above the audit threshold should also check our piece on charity audit thresholds before filing, since accounts requirements differ by income band — the audit threshold checker will tell you which regime applies to your income.

When to contact the Commission (and how)

Contact the Charity Commission directly when self-service fixes fail, when a former contact will not release account access, when your charity’s details are wrong on the public register, or when you need to report a serious incident. Most routine access issues can be resolved through the account recovery tools first, so try those before calling.

The Commission publishes its current contact routes, including phone and online contact forms, on its gov.uk contact page. Have your charity’s registered number ready, along with details of what you have already tried — I keep ours at the top of my own filing notes for exactly this reason. For access disputes involving a former trustee or employee who will not hand over control, be prepared to provide evidence of your current trustee status, such as recent AGM minutes or a trustee resolution, since the Commission needs to be confident it is handing access to the right person.

What to do next

If you have not yet set up your account, do it well before your filing deadline rather than in the final week, since access problems take time to resolve. Add a second trustee or administrator now so your charity is never one departure away from losing access, and diarise your annual return deadline based on your financial year end rather than relying on memory — our charity deadlines calendar exists for exactly that job.

Want annual return season to run itself next year? Join the annual-return co-pilot waitlist →