What are all my charity's filing deadlines, and when do they fall?

England and Wales: researched. Scotland: researched — the Charity Commission/OSCR deadline is a month shorter, and a cross-border charity should work to it; see below. Northern Ireland: researched — the same-length deadline runs from a different statute; do not cite the Charities Act 2011 for a Northern Irish charity.

Everything counts from your year end, except one thing

One date drives almost all of it. Fix your financial year end and the rest of the calendar follows from it, with one deadline anchored somewhere else entirely.

A charitable company also cannot simply send the Commission whatever it filed at Companies House. Companies House will accept reduced, filleted accounts from a small company; the Commission will not, because charity accounts must comply with the SORP regardless of company size. Plan for one full set of accounts, and take care over what actually gets sent where.

The deadline that costs money is the one charity guidance rarely mentions

If you are a charitable board running a company, the Companies House accounts deadline falls a month earlier than the Charity Commission one. Most charity guidance talks about the Commission’s deadline, so that is the one people diarise — and it is the wrong one to protect.

Missing Companies House triggers an automatic penalty on a sliding scale, with no discretion and nobody to appeal to on the merits: £150 up to a month late, £375 up to three months, £750 up to six, and £1,500 beyond that. File late two years running and the penalty doubles. Parliament gave the registrar discretion here, but that discretion is limited — it is not a route to having a penalty waived because the charity is small or the treasurer was unwell.

Missing the Commission’s deadline does not cost money directly. It is treated as misconduct or mismanagement, it shows on the public register, and it is the sort of thing that accumulates into a compliance case if it repeats. A different sanction, differently unpleasant.

The confirmation statement is not part of the accounts

Both are Companies House filings, so they get treated as one job. They are not. The confirmation statement runs on its own clock, anchored to the company’s incorporation date or the date of its last statement rather than to the financial year end. Failing to file it is a separate criminal offence, not merely a late-filing fee: it carries a fine and the risk of the company being struck off the register.

Put it in the calendar on its own line, on its own date — not folded into the accounts deadlines above.

Cross-border charities

A charity registered in more than one jurisdiction has deadlines a month apart. In practice the Scottish one governs, because 9 months is the shortest, and meeting it satisfies the others on timing. Do not cite the Charities Act 2011 at a Northern Irish charity — its duty comes from a different statute, and quoting the wrong one is a reliable way to lose a reader’s confidence.

Adopt it at a board meeting

A calendar living in the treasurer’s head is not a control. Put the dates in a document, take it to the board, minute the adoption, and name who is responsible for each filing. The point of doing this is that the charity keeps working when the treasurer is unexpectedly unavailable in December.

Common mistake: diarising only the Charity Commission deadline

It is the one charity guidance talks about. The Companies House deadline falls a month earlier and carries an automatic penalty with no discretion; missing it costs money, and missing the Commission’s does not, directly.

Common mistake: treating the confirmation statement as part of the accounts filing

Both are Companies House filings, so they get treated as one job. It is a separate filing on a different clock, anchored to the incorporation or last-statement anniversary rather than the year end, with a different sanction — a criminal offence with an unlimited fine in England and Wales (capped only in Scotland and Northern Ireland) and strike-off risk, rather than a scaled late-filing fee.

Worked example

Saltmarsh Trust, a charitable company in England and Wales, has a 31 March year end. Its calendar reads: 31 December — accounts to Companies House; 31 January — annual report, accounts and annual return to the Charity Commission; its own separate anniversary date — confirmation statement to Companies House; plus the corporation tax filing and payment dates, which belong to the tax part of this guide and follow their own logic. Four clocks and three regulators, from a single year end.