Is registering with the Fundraising Regulator mandatory?

Registration is voluntary, but any charity in England, Wales or Northern Ireland that spends more than £100,000 a year on fundraising is legally required to pay the Fundraising Levy, and paying it registers you. Smaller charities can register voluntarily for a flat annual fee. In practice, registration signals that you follow the Code of Fundraising Practice and lets you display the Fundraising Badge.

What is the difference between the Fundraising Regulator and the Charity Commission?

The Charity Commission is the statutory regulator of charities as legal entities: registration, trustee duties, and serious incidents. The Fundraising Regulator is the independent, non-statutory body that specifically oversees how charities and third parties ask the public for money. A fundraising complaint usually goes to the Fundraising Regulator; a governance failure goes to the Commission.

What happens if someone complains about our fundraising?

The Fundraising Regulator expects the complaint to be handled by your charity first. If the complainant is not satisfied, they can escalate to the Regulator, which can investigate, ask you to change your practice, require an apology, and publish its findings. Repeated or serious breaches can lead to referral to the Charity Commission or the Information Commissioner.

The Fundraising Regulator Explained for UK Charities

The Fundraising Regulator sets the rules for charitable fundraising in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. What it does, how the register and the badge work, and where charities most often fall short.

Most people who work at a charity have seen the Fundraising Badge, the small purple tick with the words "Registered with Fundraising Regulator". Far fewer could tell you what the Regulator actually does, what it can require of you, or where the lines are that get charities into trouble. This guide sets that out plainly, so you know what is expected before a complaint or an audit forces you to find out.

The Fundraising Regulator is the independent body that oversees charitable fundraising in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It was set up in 2016 after a series of high-profile cases about aggressive doorstep and telephone fundraising, and it replaced the previous self-regulation model. Scotland has a separate arrangement through the Scottish Fundraising Adjudication Panel. The Regulator is not a government department and it is not the Charity Commission. It is funded by the sector, mainly through a levy on the largest fundraising charities.

What the Fundraising Regulator actually does

The Regulator has four main jobs, and it is worth understanding each one as a separate function.

It writes and maintains the Code of Fundraising Practice, the rulebook that sets the standards every fundraiser is expected to meet.
It handles complaints from the public about fundraising, and can investigate charities and the agencies that fundraise on their behalf.
It runs the Fundraising Preference Service, which lets members of the public stop named charities contacting them.
It maintains the register of charities that have committed to the Code, and licenses the Fundraising Badge that registered charities display.

Notice what is not on that list. The Regulator does not authorise individual appeals, it does not approve your wording in advance, and it does not collect tax or grant charitable status. Those belong to the Charity Commission and HMRC. The Regulator is specifically concerned with how you ask the public for money and how you treat them when you do.

The Code of Fundraising Practice

The Code is the document that matters most day to day. It was substantially rewritten and the current version took effect in late 2024, so any internal guidance written before then should be checked. The Code sets standards across the areas where fundraising touches the public, and the recurring theme is straightforward: be honest, be open, be respectful, and be accountable.

The parts that most often catch charities out are these:

Consent and contact. If you rely on consent to contact supporters, it must be a clear, specific, freely given opt-in, and you must be able to evidence it. Vague or bundled consent from years ago does not meet the standard.
Vulnerable people. Fundraisers must be able to recognise signs that a person may not be able to make a free and informed decision to give, and must stop or decline a donation where that is the case.
Working with third parties. If a professional fundraiser or commercial participator raises money for you, there must be a written agreement, and the required statements about how much they are paid must be made to the public.
Fundraising claims. Any statement about how donations will be used has to be accurate. "Your £20 buys a blanket" needs to be defensible if only part of that £20 reaches the frontline.

None of this is exotic. It is the difference between a charity that treats fundraising as a relationship and one that treats it as extraction. The Code simply writes that distinction down and makes it enforceable.

Registration, the levy and the badge

There are two routes onto the register. If your charity spends more than £100,000 a year on fundraising, you are legally required to pay the Fundraising Levy, and paying it puts you on the register. The levy is banded by fundraising spend, so the largest charities pay the most. If you spend less than that threshold, registration is voluntary and costs a flat annual fee, currently modest for a small charity.

Registration lets you display the Fundraising Badge. The badge is not a marketing gimmick. It is a public commitment that you follow the Code and will handle complaints properly. Displaying it while ignoring the Code is exactly the kind of inconsistency that turns a minor complaint into a published investigation, so treat the badge as a promise you have to keep, not a logo you have earned once.

The badge is a promise, not a trophy. If you display it, a member of the public is entitled to expect that your fundraising meets the Code, and that a complaint will be taken seriously.

The Fundraising Preference Service

The Fundraising Preference Service lets any member of the public ask to stop being contacted by up to three named charities at a time, by post, phone, email or text. When someone uses it, the named charity receives a suppression request and has 28 days to action it. Ignoring these requests is one of the fastest ways to attract a complaint that the Regulator will uphold, because the person has already told you, through an official channel, to stop.

The practical implication for your team is that the Preference Service has to be wired into your data processes. Someone needs to own the inbox, apply the suppressions inside the window, and record that it was done. If that responsibility is not assigned to a named person, it will slip.

What happens when a complaint is made

The Regulator expects your charity to be the first port of call. A complaint should come to you, be acknowledged, investigated and resolved under your own complaints procedure. Only if the complainant remains unhappy does it escalate to the Regulator. That makes a clear, published complaints procedure your first line of defence, not an afterthought.

If a case does reach the Regulator, it can investigate, ask you to change a practice, require an apology or a refund, and publish its findings in a way that names you. For serious or repeated failures it can refer the matter to the Charity Commission or, where personal data is involved, the Information Commissioner. The reputational cost of a published case usually dwarfs the money raised by the practice that caused it.

A practical checklist for trustees and fundraising leads

If you want to know whether your charity is on the right side of the line, work through these questions honestly.

Are we registered, and if we spend over £100,000 on fundraising, are we paying the levy?
Does every fundraiser, including agencies acting for us, have access to the current Code and training on vulnerability?
Do we have written agreements with every third party that raises money in our name?
Can we evidence consent for every supporter we contact by email, phone or text?
Do we action Fundraising Preference Service and opt-out requests inside 28 days, with a record?
Is our complaints procedure published, owned by a named person, and actually followed?

If any answer is vague, that is where to start. The Fundraising Regulator is not trying to catch charities out. Its standards are, almost without exception, the same standards a thoughtful supporter would expect anyway. Meeting them protects your income, your reputation and the trust that makes fundraising possible in the first place.