Everything changing for small charities in 2026 and 2027
Four separate changes are landing on UK charities between now and 2027. They come from four different places, they use four different sets of dates, and nobody is going to send your board a single letter explaining which ones apply to you. This page is that letter.
If you read nothing else: trustees of charitable companies have to verify their identity with Companies House by their company’s next confirmation statement, and the transition period for existing directors ends on 18 November 2026. Everything else on this page gives you more room.
The one-minute triage
Most boards will find that two of these four apply to them and two do not. Start here rather than reading all four guides.
| The change | It applies to you if… | When |
|---|---|---|
| Companies House ID checks | Your charity is a charitable company (usually a company limited by guarantee). CIOs, trusts and unincorporated associations are not affected. | Next confirmation statement (transition ends 18 Nov 2026) |
| Accounting thresholds | You are in England or Wales and your income is near £25,000, £250,000, £1m or £3.26m. Scotland and Northern Ireland keep their own figures. | 30 Sep 2026 |
| Charities SORP 2026 | You prepare accruals accounts. If you use receipts-and-payments accounts, this one mostly passes you by. | Periods from 1 Jan 2026 |
| Martyn’s Law | You are responsible for premises or events where 200 or more people could be present at once. A hall, a church, a large annual fundraiser. | Expected 2027 |
A small unincorporated charity with £30,000 income and no premises is affected by one of these four. A charitable company running a community hall is affected by all of them.
1. Identity checks at Companies House
This is the one with a real deadline attached, and it is the one most likely to catch a volunteer board out, because it applies to trustees personally rather than to the charity.
Under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, everyone registered as a company director has to verify their identity with Companies House. Trustees of charitable companies are registered as directors, so this means them. Verification became mandatory for new appointments on 18 November 2025, and existing directors have a twelve-month transition period running to 18 November 2026. In practice each person's own deadline falls at their company's next confirmation statement, which is why boards with an autumn filing date have less time than they think.
The verification itself is free, takes about ten minutes through GOV.UK One Login, and produces a personal code you keep and reuse for every directorship you hold. Once the requirement bites for you, acting as a director without having verified becomes an offence, and unverified trustees can hold up the charity's filings.
What to do: put it on the agenda of your next meeting, ask every trustee to verify that week, and collect confirmations. It is the rare compliance job that is genuinely finished in an evening, and doing it early removes it from the list for good.
Full guide: Companies House ID verification for charitable-company trustees →
2. Higher accounting thresholds from 30 September 2026
For charities in England and Wales, the income and asset figures that decide how your accounts must be scrutinised are all higher for financial years ending on or after 30 September 2026. It is the first serious revision in more than a decade. The direction of travel is helpful: at every level, less is being asked of smaller charities than before.
| Threshold | Before | From 30 Sep 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Independent examination needed above | £25,000 | £40,000 |
| Qualified examiner needed above | £250,000 | £500,000 |
| Receipts-and-payments accounts allowed up to | £250,000 | £500,000 |
| Audit required (gross income) | £1 million | £1.5 million |
| Audit on assets | £3.26m gross assets | £5m gross assets |
England and Wales, applying to financial years ending on or after 30 September 2026. Scotland (OSCR) and Northern Ireland (CCNI) have their own thresholds and are not covered by this change.
A charity with income of £35,000 that has been paying for an independent examination each year may not need one at all. A charity at £300,000 may be able to use an experienced examiner who is not a member of a professional body. These are real savings for organisations where the examiner's fee is a visible line in the accounts.
The catch worth knowing about: your own governing document may require an audit or examination regardless of what the law says. Plenty of constitutions written twenty years ago name a figure that has been overtaken. Before you drop a level of scrutiny, read your constitution, and if it needs changing, plan that properly and minute the decision.
Full guide: the threshold changes, with every figure →
3. Charities SORP 2026
The SORP is the rulebook for charities that prepare accruals accounts. The new edition applies to accounting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2026, so the first year-ends caught by it are 31 December 2026 and the ones that follow through 2027. Charities preparing receipts-and-payments accounts are largely outside it, and the threshold change above means more charities can stay on that simpler basis.
The headline is a new three-tier structure based on gross income: Tier 1 up to £500,000, Tier 2 from £500,000 to £15 million, and Tier 3 above that. Most small charities sit in Tier 1 and keep the simplest presentation. Underneath it, the accounting standard FRS 102 has changed too, which is where the practical effects come from. Leases now appear on the balance sheet as an asset and a matching liability, so a charity renting premises will see its balance sheet grow without anything having actually changed. Income recognition follows a new five-step model. Trustees have to state explicitly whether they regard the charity as a going concern.
None of this needs solving this month. What it needs is a conversation with whoever prepares your accounts, before your year-end rather than after it.
Full guide: SORP 2026 for trustees →
4. Martyn’s Law
The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 received Royal Assent in April 2025 with an implementation period of at least 24 months, so the duties are expected to take effect during 2027. Statutory guidance has now been published, which means committees can prepare against something concrete rather than guessing.
What brings a charity into scope is capacity rather than what sort of organisation it is. Premises where 200 to 799 people could reasonably be expected at once fall into the standard tier; 800 or more falls into the enhanced tier. That capacity is judged on a busy day, not a quiet Tuesday, so village halls, churches, scout huts and community centres that host weddings, fairs and performances need to do the arithmetic honestly.
The standard tier is deliberately light. There is no requirement to buy equipment or hire a consultant. It asks that responsible persons notify the Security Industry Authority and have simple public protection procedures in place covering evacuation, moving people to safety inside, lockdown, and how you would communicate with everyone on site. For most halls that is a written page or two, a conversation with regular hirers, and a review from time to time.
Full guide: Martyn’s Law and your village or community hall →
What has not changed
Worth saying plainly, because a run of headlines about change can leave a board assuming everything is in motion.
- Registration is still required in England and Wales once income exceeds £5,000, and for a CIO at any size.
- The annual return is still required above £10,000, and the fuller return with accounts from £25,000.
- Filing deadlines are unchanged: ten months after your year-end for the Charity Commission and CCNI, nine months for OSCR, nine months for company accounts at Companies House.
- Trustee duties themselves are the same as they have always been, and the 2025 Charity Governance Code still has its eight principles.
Your next three board meetings
A way to spread this across the autumn without giving any single meeting over to compliance.
This meeting
- Establish whether you are a charitable company. If you are, every trustee verifies at Companies House this month, and the secretary collects confirmation.
- Note your income band against the new thresholds and ask the treasurer to check the governing document for an audit or examination clause.
- If you run premises, work out your realistic maximum capacity and record it.
The one after
- Take a recommendation from the treasurer on whether your level of scrutiny changes for the next financial year, and minute the decision.
- If you prepare accruals accounts, get a note from your accountant on what SORP 2026 means for your first affected year-end.
- If you are over 200 capacity, agree who is the responsible person and set a date to draft the procedures.
Spring 2027
- Confirm every trustee is verified, including anyone appointed since.
- Adopt your public protection procedures and tell your regular hirers about them.
- Review whether the constitution needs amending to match the new thresholds, and if so, put it to the members properly.
One board meeting's worth of thinking, spread across three meetings, deals with all four of these. The charities that will struggle are the ones that read nothing until the letter arrives.
Two free tools that do some of this for you
Neither asks for an email address and neither stores anything.
- Deadline checker — enter your nation, structure and year-end and get every filing date, with a calendar file you can add to your own diary.
- Board health check — ten questions scored against the 2025 Charity Governance Code, with a report you can print for the board.
Not enough hours in the volunteer week?
We do the governance admin that keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the list. Minutes from a recording of your meeting, back in two working days, for £19 — and you approve them before you pay.
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