Gift Aid statistics
Gift Aid is one of the biggest sources of tax relief for UK charities. In the tax year to April 2025, HMRC paid charities £1.7 billion in Gift Aid, up 7% on the year, and more than 67,000 organisations claimed it. Yet an estimated several hundred million pounds more goes unclaimed each year. This page sets out the key figures, with HMRC as the source throughout.
In the tax year to April 2025, HMRC paid UK charities and community amateur sports clubs £1.7 billion in Gift Aid, up 7% on the previous year (Source: HMRC, UK charity tax relief statistics, updated 26 June 2025).
Key statistics at a glance
These are HMRC’s accredited official statistics for the tax year ending April 2025, unless noted. The most recent year’s figures are provisional and may be revised in HMRC’s next release (expected Summer 2026).
- £1.7 billion in Gift Aid paid to charities, up 7% on the year (HMRC, y/e April 2025).
- 67,320 organisations received Gift Aid, up 2% (HMRC, y/e April 2025).
- £40 million in Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme payments, back to the pre-pandemic level (HMRC, y/e April 2025).
- About half the value of Gift Aid went to charities each receiving under £1 million (HMRC, y/e April 2025).
- ~£560 million of eligible Gift Aid estimated to go unclaimed each year (Charities Aid Foundation estimate — not an official figure).
- £6.7 billion total tax reliefs for charities and their donors, up 5% (HMRC, y/e April 2025).
- 1.31 million people declared a donation via Self Assessment (HMRC, y/e April 2024).
How much Gift Aid do charities claim?
HMRC paid charities £1.7 billion in Gift Aid in the tax year to April 2025, up 7% on the year. Gift Aid has followed a long-term upward trend, rising from under £1.3 billion a decade ago, with a dip around the pandemic before recovering. The year-by-year figures are below; the most recent year is provisional.
Chart 1 (for Ivan to build): Gift Aid paid to charities by tax year, 2019–2025, showing the pandemic dip and recovery. Free to reuse with attribution to CharityIQ and HMRC (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Gift Aid paid to charities by year (£ millions)
| Tax year ending April | Gift Aid paid (£m) |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 1,350 |
| 2020 | 1,400 |
| 2021 | 1,380 |
| 2022 | 1,340 |
| 2023 | 1,600 |
| 2024 | 1,600 |
| 2025 (provisional) | 1,710 |
Where does Gift Aid go, by charity size?
Gift Aid reaches charities of every size, and its value is split roughly evenly between smaller and larger organisations. In the year to April 2025, about half the total value went to charities each receiving under £1 million. By number, the great majority of claimants are small: over 53,000 of the 67,320 organisations received £10,000 or less in Gift Aid that year.
Chart 2 (for Ivan to build): value of Gift Aid and number of organisations, by size band. Free to reuse with attribution.
Gift Aid by size of claim (tax year to April 2025)
| Gift Aid received by the organisation | Value (£m) | Number of organisations |
|---|---|---|
| Up to £1,000 | 10 | 23,050 |
| £1,001 to £5,000 | 60 | 22,300 |
| £5,001 to £10,000 | 60 | 8,050 |
| £10,001 to £50,000 | 230 | 10,630 |
| £50,001 to £100,000 | 110 | 1,530 |
| £100,001 to £1 million | 410 | 1,580 |
| Over £1 million | 850 | 190 |
| Total | 1,710 | 67,320 |
Figures are HMRC’s own, rounded to the nearest £10 million (value) or nearest 10 (number of organisations); we checked HMRC’s published table directly (accessed 10 July 2026), and its rounded rows already do not sum exactly to its stated totals (the value column sums to £1,730m against a stated total of £1,710m, and the organisation-count column sums to 67,330 against a stated total of 67,320). This is HMRC’s own rounding, not a CharityIQ error — we reproduce HMRC’s figures and totals exactly as published.
Unclaimed Gift Aid
A significant amount of eligible Gift Aid is never claimed. The most widely-cited figure is the Charities Aid Foundation’s estimate that around £560 million goes unclaimed each year. This is an external estimate rather than an official HMRC statistic, so treat it as indicative — but the underlying problem is real. Gift Aid goes unclaimed because of missing or invalid declarations, donations made through channels where Gift Aid is not captured, and simple lack of capacity in small charities to claim.
For a small charity, unclaimed Gift Aid is often recoverable money. You can claim on eligible donations going back up to four years, provided you hold valid declarations, and the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme can capture some small cash and contactless gifts where you do not.
The Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS)
GASDS is a separate, much smaller scheme that lets charities claim a Gift Aid-style top-up on small donations without a declaration. Payments under it returned to their pre-pandemic level of £40 million in the tax year to April 2025. It matters most to charities that collect small cash or contactless donations — buckets, plates, contactless points — where getting a declaration is impractical.
Gift Aid in the wider picture of charity tax reliefs
Gift Aid is one part of a larger set of tax reliefs. In the tax year to April 2025, total reliefs for charities and their donors were around £6.7 billion, up 5% on the year: about £4.75 billion of reliefs for charities and £1.92 billion for donors. The single largest relief for charities is business rates relief, at £2.75 billion.
Main charity and donor tax reliefs (tax year to April 2025)
| Relief | Value |
|---|---|
| Business rates (non-domestic rates) relief | £2.75bn |
| Gift Aid paid to charities | £1.7bn |
| Inheritance Tax reliefs for donations | £980m |
| Higher-rate relief on donors’ Gift Aided donations | £820m |
| Stamp Duty Land Tax relief for charities | £270m |
| Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme | £40m |
Methodology and sources
Every figure here is HMRC’s own, except the unclaimed estimate, which is external and labelled as such.
- Source: HMRC, “UK charity tax relief statistics” (commentary and data tables), updated 26 June 2025, covering the tax year ending April 2025. Tables 1, 2 and 6 are Accredited Official Statistics; Tables 3–5 are Official Statistics. Published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Next update expected Summer 2026.
- Provisional figures: HMRC marks the most recent tax year’s figures as provisional and revises them in later releases, so 2025 figures may change. Self Assessment donor figures run a year behind (latest full year to April 2024).
- GASDS is technically government expenditure rather than a tax relief, but HMRC includes it for completeness; we follow that.
- Unclaimed Gift Aid (~£560m) is an estimate by the Charities Aid Foundation, based on analysis of giving and tax data. It is not an HMRC official statistic and estimates vary; we cite it as indicative and attribute it clearly.
- Coverage: Gift Aid statistics are UK-wide, as Gift Aid is administered by HMRC across the UK. Business rates and Stamp Duty figures reflect the devolved position noted in HMRC’s commentary.
- Complementary sources HMRC itself points to: DCMS Community Life Survey and the Charities Aid Foundation’s UK Giving report for giving behaviour.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution. Suggested citation:
CharityIQ (2026), “Gift Aid statistics for UK charities”, drawing on HMRC “UK charity tax relief statistics” (updated 26 June 2025, Open Government Licence v3.0), with the unclaimed Gift Aid estimate attributed to the Charities Aid Foundation. Available at: https://charityiq.co.uk/data/gift-aid-statistics/ (accessed [date]).
Changelog
- 10 July 2026: first published, using HMRC statistics updated 26 June 2025 (tax year to April 2025; Self Assessment to April 2024). To be refreshed after HMRC’s Summer 2026 update.
CharityIQ helps small charities keep Gift Aid declarations and records in order, so less of that estimated £560 million has to go unclaimed — with a person checking every claim.