How do I apply to register a charity with OSCR?

England and Wales: This page is about registering with OSCR. If you are registering in England or Wales, see Apply to register — England and Wales. Scotland: This page sets out the position in full. Northern Ireland: This page is about registering with OSCR. If you are registering in Northern Ireland, see Apply to register — Northern Ireland.

Why Scotland has no registration threshold

OSCR, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, is the body that registers and regulates charities in Scotland. Founders who register a charity in Scotland apply to OSCR when they are ready, because there is no income threshold to cross. If you are not sure Scotland is the right place, first decide which jurisdictions to register in.

In England and Wales, a body meets the legal definition of a charity before it ever registers. Registration is a separate duty that starts above an income threshold. In Scotland, being a charity and being registered are the same thing. The Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 s.13(1), verbatim:

“A body entered in the Register may refer to itself as a ‘charity’, a ‘charitable body’, a ‘registered charity’ or a ‘charity registered in Scotland’.”

Charitable status in Scotland flows from being on the Scottish Charity Register. A body that is not on it cannot hold itself out as a charity at all. That is true whatever its purposes or its income. That is why there is no threshold. A threshold would have nothing left to do.

You apply when your governing document and evidence pack are ready, not when you cross a figure. There is no figure to cross, as do you have to register your charity? explains for all three nations.

This affects how the rest of Scottish charity law reads. Take rules that look harsh next to England and Wales, such as external scrutiny at every income level. They apply to a smaller group than the matching English rule. That is because the smallest bodies are not on the Register unless they choose to be.

What OSCR tests: your purposes, and your activities

Your purposes have to fall within the list in s.7(2) of the 2005 Act, one of the three UK lists of charitable purposes. The list has sixteen headings. They run from the prevention or relief of poverty to a closing catch-all for anything reasonably analogous. The list broadly tracks England and Wales, but it is not the same.

Sport is defined more narrowly, as “sport which involves physical skill and exertion”. The English wording says “physical or mental skill”.

Scotland has no separate purpose for the armed forces or emergency services. Philosophical belief is expressly treated as analogous to the advancement of religion. If your purposes were drafted against the English list, you should check that they map onto the Scottish one.

Passing the charity test also means meeting the public benefit condition, which you will have worked through when you showed public benefit. Scotland spells this out more fully than England and Wales does. s.8(2), verbatim:

“In determining whether a body provides or intends to provide public benefit, regard must be had to— (a) how any— (i) benefit gained or likely to be gained by members of the body or any other persons (other than as members of the public), and (ii) disbenefit incurred or likely to be incurred by the public, in consequence of the body exercising its functions compares with the benefit gained or likely to be gained by the public in that consequence, and (b) where benefit is, or is likely to be, provided to a section of the public only, whether any condition on obtaining that benefit (including any charge or fee) is unduly restrictive.”

Three things follow that have no direct match in English statute. First, it is a net-benefit test. Harm the body causes to the public, called “disbenefit”, is weighed against the public benefit, not ignored.

Second, the test names fees as something that can be unduly restrictive. That applies to any charity, not only fee-charging schools.

Third, the test asks whether the body “provides or intends to provide” benefit. So it reaches what you do in practice, not only what your governing document says you will do. If you will charge for your services, you should explain the charge in the application rather than wait to be asked.

Two governing-document traps: dissolution and trustee pay

s.7(4) of the 2005 Act sets out three more conditions. A body caught by any of them fails the charity test, even where its purposes and public benefit are otherwise fine. The one that catches founders is the first.

A body does not meet the charity test if its governing document lets it distribute or apply property for a non-charitable purpose. That applies on winding up or at any other time. A dissolution clause that lets assets pass to members, or to any non-charitable body, fails the charity test outright in Scotland. That is why the dissolution clause needs to be right when you agree powers, membership and dissolution, before you reach this step.

Scotland is also stricter than England and Wales on paying a trustee for services. Check this before you submit. s.67(1), verbatim: “a charity trustee may not be remunerated for services provided to the charity … unless subsection (2) entitles the trustee to be so remunerated”.

Scotland starts from a ban. England and Wales starts from a right to be paid once conditions are met. The two start from opposite ends. In Scotland, a clause in the governing document that allows payment only helps if it was in force on 15 November 2004.

A charity formed today cannot write in its own clause allowing payment and rely on it. The only routes for a new charity are the s.67(2)–(3) conditions, an order of the Court of Session, or another enactment. If a trustee is paid in breach of s.67, OSCR can direct the charity to recover the money. s.67(7), verbatim: “proceedings for its recovery must be taken if OSCR so directs”.

What OSCR will publish about you, including your trustees’ names

Since 5 March 2026 the law has required the Scottish Charity Register to show the name of each charity trustee. The names appear alongside the charity’s name, principal office and purposes. The Register also shows whether it is a designated religious charity or national collector. Tell anyone you ask to be a trustee about this before they agree to act, not after.

A narrow exclusion route exists. OSCR must leave out a trustee’s name, or the principal-office details, in one case. Two things trigger the duty. Someone applies for exclusion. And OSCR is satisfied that publishing it “would be likely to jeopardise the safety or security of any person or premises”. An individual trustee can apply, not only the charity.

You can also ask when you apply to register. That is the point to act on. A charity working in a contested field should raise it at this step, not go back to OSCR later. Once registered, you record trustee details with OSCR as they change.

When a charity from elsewhere must register in Scotland

An England and Wales charity does not need a second, Scottish registration only because it does some work in Scotland. Becoming a cross-border charity turns on a narrow exception in the Act, not a general “operating in Scotland” test.

s.14 of the 2005 Act sets out that exception. Its conditions all apply together. Every one has to be met, and losing any one defeats the exception.

To keep the exception, the body must meet all four of these conditions:

• be managed wholly or mainly outside Scotland
• not occupy any land or premises in Scotland
• not carry out activities from an office, shop or similar premises there
• state, whenever it calls itself a charity in Scotland, that it is established under the law of another country or territory

That last one is a positive duty most summaries miss.

The trigger that matters is premises, not activity in general. A charity can provide services in Scotland and still keep the exception. That holds as long as it does not occupy or operate from premises there. One that opens even a single office or shop, or occupies any land, loses it.

At that point it must enter the Scottish Charity Register to keep calling itself a charity there at all.

Few sources publish this point. A reader searching for “do I have to register in Scotland” will not find a duty stated anywhere. They will find only the narrow cases in which the exception is lost. That is because s.14 is drafted as an exception rather than as a registration duty.

What to expect once you apply

Founders looking for a service standard will not find one in the 2005 Act itself. OSCR sets its own targets and reports against them. In its most recent year it completed 96.1% of registration case decisions within its 6 months target.

It also runs a second, faster standard for applications it sees as clearly charitable when they arrive. It met that tighter standard much less often in the same year. Expect that gap rather than be surprised by it.

Neither figure is a promise about your own application. Each only shows how the regulator did in general. The page on what it costs and how long it takes compares the three regulators.

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

Common mistake: waiting to reach an income threshold before applying

Every England and Wales source describes a threshold. So founders tend to assume Scotland has one too. It does not, and cannot.

Only a body on the Register may call itself a charity in Scotland at all. Waiting means working without charitable status, not putting off a formality.

Common mistake: assuming an England and Wales registration is enough to call yourself a charity in Scotland

The cross-border exception is drafted as an exception. So a reader looking for a registration requirement finds nothing and concludes there is none.

The charity loses the exception once it occupies land or premises in Scotland. It also loses it once it operates from an office or shop there, or is managed mainly from Scotland. Even while it applies, the charity must say where it is established whenever it calls itself a charity.

Common mistake: not telling prospective trustees their names will be published

This is a recent change, and most guidance is older than it. Trustee names now appear on the Scottish Charity Register. A narrow safety-or-security exclusion exists. Applying for it at registration is far easier than adding it later.

Worked example

Saltmarsh Trust is already registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales. It decides to open a small office in Glasgow to run a regional programme. Occupying that office loses it the s.14 cross-border exception. It now needs to enter the Scottish Charity Register to keep calling itself a charity in Scotland.

The new registration sits alongside the one it already has in England and Wales. The result is a second registration, with a second regulator. The trust spots it and starts it before the office opens, not later.