How do I apply to register a charity with the Charity Commission?

England and Wales: This page sets out the position in full. Scotland: not applicable — this page is about applying to the Charity Commission for England and Wales specifically; if you are registering in Scotland, see Apply to register — Scotland. Northern Ireland: not applicable — if you are registering with CCNI, see Apply to register — Northern Ireland.

When to apply: only once the charity is fully set up

Register a charity with the Charity Commission in England and Wales only once it is fully set up. Founders in Scotland and Northern Ireland apply to OSCR or CCNI instead, each on its own page. If you are not sure which applies, first decide which jurisdictions to register in.

The Commission says plainly that you apply only once the charity is set up. That means:

• purposes decided
• structure chosen
• governing document written
• name chosen
• trustees recruited
• funding decided

Earlier steps in this hub cover each of these, from how you show public benefit to how you choose your name. The documents come together when you assemble your evidence pack.

Registration can feel like the act that creates the charity. So it is tempting to start the application while other parts are still being decided. But an early application is sent back, not queued for later. You send it in again once it is ready, rather than picking up where you left off.

The service does let you save an application and come back to it. That makes it feel open-ended. It is not.

You can only go back to a started application for a limited time. The Commission does not say what happens once that time runs out, and it is not established here. Treat “saved” as a pause, not a safe place to leave it for long.

Why applications are delayed or returned, including AI text

The Commission names six reasons an application is queried or sent back. Read them before you submit, not after:

• you don’t answer every question fully;
• you aren’t using a model or approved governing document;
• you don’t write your charity’s purposes clearly, explaining what they are and how you will carry them out;
• you don’t fully explain how your purposes are for the public benefit and will be carried out for it;
• you or a third-party adviser have used generic text — including text generated through AI tools — that is not specific to the charity you want to register; or
• your charity’s purposes are new or unusual.

The AI-generated-text reason is new. It is the regulator saying it outright, not a vague warning about quality.

The advice it points to is not “don’t use AI.” It is that generic text fails the application, whatever produced it. The Commission is checking that the answers fit your own charity, not that a human typed them.

Separately, the Commission will send back any application that is unclear or incomplete, for you to send in again. That is a stricter and more general ground than any one of the six.

How long registration takes

Being acknowledged is fast, but being assessed is not. The Commission publishes no figure for how long registration alone lasts.

It does publish two other figures that are easy to read as one “how long does this take” answer. They measure different things. Within 48 hours the Commission checks that what you sent is complete and that your trustees are eligible.

A further 48 hours after a decision to register, the entry appears on the public register. Both are fast, and neither is the time to a decision. They mark the two ends of the process and say nothing about the middle. That is where the real wait is.

The Commission’s standard is that it aims to decide registration, permission and advice requests within 30 working days. But this figure covers all three types of request together, not registration alone. No figure for registration alone is published.

In the most recent year on record, 80% of these combined requests were decided within that standard. That was down on the year before, even though output per caseworker rose. The number of new applications rose faster still.

The Commission now says it may take up to 45 working days to send a query if your application needs more details. It says this is a temporary effect of high volumes, not a fixed service standard. That is the time to raise a question, not the time to decide.

The real total is the query wait, plus the time you take to reply, plus the assessment that follows. No one publishes a figure for that total, and this page does not estimate one. So expect the assessment to take much longer than the acknowledgement suggests. The page on what it costs and how long it takes compares the three regulators.

Why no refusal rate is published

No UK charity regulator publishes a refusal rate. Nor can you work one out from the Commission’s own numbers. In the latest year on record the Commission received 11759 applications to register and registered 4650 charities. But do not divide one by the other to get a refusal rate.

The two figures count different groups of cases over the same period. The gap between them mixes real refusals with applications that were returned, withdrawn, still open or found not to need registering.

The Commission has also said that it approved 53% of new charity applications in the most recent year it has commented on. That figure came from a blog post by a named author, not a statistics release. The post did not say what the figure was a share of.

53% approved does not mean the rest were refused. The same post says the Commission often spots and stops sham applications. Those sit in a different category again.

None of the UK’s three charity regulators publishes a count of refusals, returns or withdrawals on its own. This page’s own research looked for one in the quarterly data and the annual reports. It also looked in the Commission’s published decisions on registration. None of them has one.

The nearest evidence is that the Commission says refusals do happen. It also reports that, in the most recent year, people asked for internal reviews of 102 of its decisions, including refusals to register. This is a real gap in the UK’s published charity data. This page says so plainly rather than estimate a figure to fill it.

Three possible outcomes, and what happens if you are refused

The Commission’s decision is one of three, not two. It can:

• register the charity
• register it subject to conditions the trustees must then act on
• reject the application

If you are refused, you have three routes. Each is a real option, not a duty. You may:

• reapply once you have dealt with the reasons given
• ask the Commission to review its own decision
• appeal to the Charity Tribunal

Asking for a review is a real route, not a formality. In the most recent year on record, the Commission changed the decision in a large share of the internal reviews it completed. And roughly a quarter of all review requests were about registering a new charity. A refusal need not be the end.

Can I register voluntarily, below the threshold?

Most earlier steps in this hub are about when registration becomes a duty, which do you have to register your charity? sets out in full. For most structures, that is above £5,000 gross income. A CIO must register whatever its income is.

A separate and narrower question is whether a charity below that line can choose to register anyway. The Commission’s published practice is to consider this only in exceptional circumstances. Its own example is a charity that has been offered large funds but needs a registered charity number to receive them.

The statute’s own wording reads differently: closer to a right than a discretion. Specialist charity lawyers raised the same gap in a recent government consultation. It was not resolved. This page does not tell you that you have a right to be registered below the threshold. It tells you only what the Commission says it will do in practice.

If a funder is why you want a number, HMRC recognition for tax purposes is worth asking about instead. It is separate from registering with the Commission and can unlock Gift Aid without a charity number. That route sits outside this hub, though.

Some charities, set out in excepted and exempt charities, do not have to register at all. These are charities the Commission has excepted by order or regulation, with income at or below £100,000. But this applies only to named classes, not to charities in general. Examples are some churches and chapels, Scout and Guide groups, and armed-forces charitable funds.

Once you have applied, operate while you wait covers what the charity can do before the decision.

Common mistake: applying before the charity is set up

Registration feels like the act of creating the charity. The Commission says plainly that you apply only once the charity is set up.

That means purposes decided, structure chosen and governing document written. It also means name chosen, trustees recruited and funding decided. Applying early gets the application returned.

Common mistake: assuming the application can be left part-finished indefinitely

The service lets you save and come back, so it feels open-ended. But you can go back to a started application only for a limited time. The Commission does not say what happens after that, and it is not established here.

Worked example

Tollgate Youth CIO applies with a modest expected income. It needs no income evidence at all, because the general income threshold never applies to a CIO. The application goes in complete. Each answer is specific to Tollgate’s own work, not generic wording. An automated acknowledgement comes back within days, well before any decision.