What questions does the charity annual return actually ask?

England and Wales: This page sets out the position in full. Scotland: not applicable to this step — see Step 8, Complete the OSCR annual return. Northern Ireland: not applicable to this step — see Step 9, Complete the CCNI annual monitoring return.

Does the annual return ask about AI or cyber security?

No. The charity annual return in England and Wales has no AI question and no cyber security question. This comes first because much sector commentary says otherwise. Trustees have prepared answers to questions that do not exist. This page assumes you have gathered your annual return data first; it is about completing the form.

The Charity Commission’s question guide governs both the 2025 and the 2026 returns. It has been read end to end. It contains no question about artificial intelligence and no question about cyber security. One guide covers both years, so no later document contains them. If you are looking for where the questions were added, there is nowhere left to look.

If your board has asked you to prepare an AI policy specifically to answer the annual return, it can stop. Your charity may have good reasons to have one. This is not one of them.

The eight sections of the annual return

The return has eight sections, plus preliminary questions on the financial period and on income and spending. What each question means is set out in the questions the annual return asks; in outline:

1. Income. Government contracts and grants by number and value, and an income breakdown. The single highest donation from a corporate donor, an individual and a related party.
2. Grant making and trustee payments. Whether grant making is your main activity, who received grants, and whether any recipient was a related party. What trustees were paid for, and whether a trustee resigned and then took up employment. The rules are in can charity trustees be paid.
3. Overseas. Income from outside the UK and spending outside it, by country, source type and transfer method. This includes how much moved outside the regulated banking system.
4. Trading subsidiaries. Whether you have them, whether any were dissolved, and which trustees are also directors.
5. Property. Held by holding or custodian trustees. Unincorporated charities only.
6. People. Headcount by employment type, how many work outside the UK, payroll spend, employees in benefit bands, and an estimated number of volunteers.
7. Governance. Including which policies were in place at the period end.
8. Safeguarding and the serious incident declaration.

Can crossing an income threshold remove a question?

Yes: growing past one income ceiling removes a question. Question 1.3, the income breakdown, applies where gross income is at or below £500,000 and grants and contracts are under 70% of income.

So a charity whose income rises past that ceiling stops having to answer it. Growth usually adds obligations in charity law. Here it takes one away. Check this before you spend a morning preparing a breakdown nobody wants.

Question 1.4, by contrast, applies where income is over £100,000, which is the direction people expect.

The serious incident declaration

The serious incident declaration is what gives serious incident reporting its legal force. A charity with income over £25,000 signs it. It reads like a formality at the end of a long form. Yet a false answer here, given knowingly or recklessly, is an offence by the person who gives it.

Do not sign it with an unreported incident outstanding. If something happened during the period that should have been reported and was not, report it first, then complete the return. What counts is set out where you recognise a serious incident, and how to report it where you make a serious incident report.

The Commission’s guidance asks for unreported incidents to be submitted before you file, so that the declaration can be made. Until they are, the return cannot be completed.

When is the annual return due?

The return is due on the same date as the annual report — 10 months after the financial year end. For a charity’s first return, see when the first annual return is due. Record the submission reference when you get it, in the same place you keep the data pack. It is your evidence of what you said and when.

A charity also registered in Scotland or Northern Ireland completes the OSCR annual return or the CCNI annual monitoring return as well. For every charity, the report itself starts with what the trustees’ annual report has to include.

Common mistake: expecting AI and cyber security questions

Several sector sources said the 2026 return added them. This project once said so too. It did not. The guide governing both the 2025 and 2026 returns was read end to end and contains neither.

Common mistake: answering the serious incident declaration before reporting outstanding incidents

It reads like a tick-box. The declaration is what gives serious incident reporting its legal force. A false declaration, given knowingly or recklessly, is an offence under s.60. The return cannot be completed properly until incidents are reported.

Worked example

Saltmarsh Trust’s income grows past the ceiling in £500,000. It stops having to answer the income breakdown question the moment it crosses that line. Growth removed a question rather than adding one.