What do we need to check before running a charity fundraising event?

England and Wales: This page sets out the position in full. Scotland: the same VAT rule and the same raffle rules, because both are Great Britain-wide or UK-wide; collections are licensed under a different, single Scottish permission. See below. Northern Ireland: the same VAT rule, but the raffle rules are materially different and come from a separate statute, and so do the collection rules. See below.

One event, three regimes

A charity fundraising event such as a quiz night with a raffle and a bucket at the door looks like one thing. In law it can be three, and the table shows what triggers each, how it differs by nation and which page owns it. This is the first of the hub’s pages on money raised from the public rather than from funders. It assumes nothing from the grant steps before it.

Each has its own rules, its own regulator and its own consequence. None of them mentions the others. This page states each one in a paragraph or two and sends you to the page that carries it in full.

Planning is the point. Each of these is cheap to get right before the event and expensive, or impossible, to fix after it.

VAT: count before you plan, not at the year end

The VAT exemption for fundraising events has a limit on how many events of the same kind a charity can hold at the same location. The tax hub’s step to apply the fundraising events exemption sets out the limit, what counts as one event, and the disregard for small events. Read it there.

What this page adds is why you count first. Three features make the limit a planning rule rather than a tax point:

• It is counted across the charity’s own financial year, not the tax year, by kind of event and by location.
• Going over it loses the exemption on the whole programme, not just the extra events. Every event of that kind at that location that year is caught.
• The loss is retrospective. The statute says the exemption is then “treated as having not applied”. Events that were exempt when you held them stop being exempt.

So VAT becomes due on takings from events months ago. By the time a treasurer notices, that money has usually been spent. A monthly event, plus a few extras at the same venue, is exactly how charities get there.

Because VAT is UK-wide, this applies identically in all three nations.

Gambling: every raffle must meet the conditions on its own

A raffle is a lottery. In England, Wales and Scotland, a raffle held as part of an event can run without any licence or registration. It does so as an incidental lottery under the Gambling Act 2005, Schedule 11 Part 1. But only if it meets every condition, and each raffle at each event must meet them independently:

• Tickets sold only at the event. They may be sold only on the premises where the event takes place, and only while it is taking place. No advance sales at all — not in the shop the week before, not online.
• No rollover. An unclaimed or unwon prize cannot be carried to the next event’s draw.
• No private gain. It must be promoted wholly for a purpose other than private gain.
• Capped deductions. You may deduct no more than £500 from the proceeds for the cost of prizes. For the costs of organising it, the limit is £100. The caps apply whatever the prizes and costs came to.

Advance ticket sales are the commonest breach. Two older conditions have gone: the event no longer has to be “non-commercial”, and the result no longer has to be announced during the event. Both were removed in Great Britain in 2016. Guidance that still mentions them is out of date.

If a raffle breaks any condition, it is not exempt. Promoting a lottery that is neither licensed nor exempt is a criminal offence under the Gambling Act 2005 s.258, in Great Britain. The offence is committed by the person who promotes it — an individual volunteer or trustee, not only the charity. The full conditions, the defence and the penalty are on run a lottery or raffle lawfully.

Gambling in Northern Ireland: a different statute, stricter conditions

Northern Ireland does not have the same raffle rules under a different regulator. It has different rules. They come from the Betting, Gaming, Lotteries and Amusements (Northern Ireland) Order 1985, art 133, which covers small lotteries at exempt entertainments.

Northern Ireland kept two things Great Britain dropped:

• The result must be declared at the event. Tickets may not be sold, and the result may not be declared, except on the premises and while the entertainment is going on.
• You must tell the police in advance. Notice of the entertainment must be served on the sub-divisional commander of the police not less than 7 days before it takes place.

Under art 133(6), a breach makes every person concerned in promoting or running that lottery guilty of an offence — individual volunteers included. Art 133(7) gives a defence to someone who shows two things. The breach happened without their consent or connivance, and they took due diligence to prevent it. The offence can be tried in either court.

A charity running the same raffle in Belfast and in Glasgow is working to two different sets of conditions.

Collections: a licence depends on where you collect

A bucket inside a hall you have hired is not a public collection. No public licence regime was identified for collections on private land; what you need is the occupier’s permission.

Collecting in the street, or door to door, is different, and each nation does it its own way:

In Scotland, two kinds of collection fall outside the s.119 permission. One is a collection at a public meeting. The other is a collecting box left unattended in a fixed position in a public place.

All three nations passed a modern, unified collections regime. None of them has ever switched it on. The old Acts are the law. The offences in each nation, and who commits them, are set out when you run a collection lawfully.

Insurance and premises

Events create risk to other people — guests, volunteers, passers-by — that the charity may not otherwise carry. Public liability insurance and the rules on premises were not examined for this page, and it offers no insurance advice in their place. Insurance is covered when you buy the insurance you actually need. Before the event, check your existing policies and the venue’s terms.

The pre-event check

For each event, before you advertise it, record:

1. VAT. How many events of this kind the charity has held, and plans to hold, at this location in this financial year. Count them as the tax page sets out.
2. Any raffle. That tickets will be sold only at the event and during it, with no rollover and deductions within the caps. In Northern Ireland, the date the police notice was served.
3. Any collection. Where it will happen, and the licence, permit or occupier’s permission it needs.
4. Insurance and premises. What cover exists and what the venue requires.

Keep the record with the event file. It is the evidence that someone checked before the tickets went on sale.

If the event has a raffle, the next step, run a lottery or raffle lawfully, has the conditions in full. Collecting in the street or door to door comes after it.

Common mistake: planning a monthly event series without counting against the VAT event limit

Each event is planned separately. But the limit is counted by kind and location across the charity’s financial year, and exceeding it makes the whole year’s programme taxable — retrospectively. By the time a treasurer notices, the takings are spent.

Worked example

Wrenfield Village Hall runs a quiz night on the first Friday of every month, in its own hall, with a raffle each time. The committee also holds a summer quiz and a Christmas quiz there.

That is two separate problems.

The first is VAT. Every quiz is the same kind of event at the same location, so every one counts towards the limit on the tax page. The treasurer counts them before the diary is set, not after the Christmas quiz.

If the programme would go over the limit, the committee changes the plan now, with a different kind of event or a different venue. That is better than losing the exemption on the whole year’s quizzes.

The second is the raffle. Each month’s raffle must meet the incidental lottery conditions on its own. One committee member has been selling raffle tickets in the village shop the week before each quiz. That takes the raffle outside the exemption altogether. From now on, tickets go on sale when the doors open and not before.