Accounting and audit thresholds rise (England and Wales)
Takes effect: financial years ending on or after 30 September 2026. If your charity’s financial year ends before that date, none of this applies to you yet — carry on using the figures your year has always used, and come back to this page when you next set a year end.
What changed
SI 2026/427 raises the receipts-and-payments ceiling from £250,000 to £500,000, the accruals threshold from £250,000 to £500,000, the no-scrutiny ceiling from £25,000 to £40,000, the independent-examination threshold from £250,000 to £500,000, and the audit income threshold from £1,000,000 to £1,500,000, together with the audit asset threshold (from £3,260,000 to £5,000,000) and the income condition inside it, which moves silently via s.133 (from £250,000 to £500,000), plus the group accounts threshold (from £1,000,000 to £1,500,000) and group audit threshold (from £1,000,000 to £1,500,000). A new band now files accounts with no external scrutiny at all. Everything attaches to financial years ending on or after 30 September 2026, so a year already under way is caught if it ends on or after that date.
Who it affects
Charities in England and Wales working out what accounts they must prepare and what scrutiny they need.
Why the basis matters more than the date
The instrument does not simply replace the old figures with new ones on 30 September 2026. It applies to financial years ending on or after that date. A charity with a year end of 31 August has already filed, or will file, under the old figures for the year that just closed, and moves to the new figures for the year that started 1 September 2026. A charity with a 31 December year end is still under the old figures for the year ending 31 December 2026, and only moves across for the year ending 31 December 2027. Two charities can therefore be on different sides of this change for more than a year after the commencement date — check your own financial year end, not today’s date.
What to do
See money-12: Determine which type of accounts you must prepare (/guide/money/which-accounts-to-prepare/) and money-13: Determine what external scrutiny you need (/guide/money/determine-external-scrutiny-need/) — check against your own year end, not the calendar date.
Pages updated as a result
None yet.
Source
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2026/427/made
The Charities Acts 1992 and 2011 (Substitution of Sums) Order 2026 (SI 2026/427)
Facts behind this page
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