Guidance

Change your charity’s financial year

Find out how to change your charity’s financial year (or financial period).

• From: The Charity Commission
• Published: 12 November 2018
• Last updated: 10 December 2018 — See all updates

You cannot change your charity’s financial year or period if your latest annual return and accounts (if required) are overdue.

To sign in and change your financial year you will need to have set up a Charity Commission Account.

Read the privacy notice before you use the service.

Rules for charities that are not companies

If your charity is a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) or unincorporated (not a company) you can change the financial year or period to run for more or less than 12 months.

It needs to be a minimum of 6 months, and no longer than 18 months.

You can only:

• change the dates for your current financial year
• make a change once every 3 years

Changing your financial year or period will also change your deadline for filing the annual return and accounts.

Rules for charities that are companies

If your charity is incorporated (a company) you can shorten your financial year or period as often as you’d like.

The minimum period you can shorten it to is 1 day.

You can lengthen your company’s financial year to a maximum of 18 months, but this can only be done once every 5 financial periods.

Rules for newly registered charities

If your charity is newly registered, and you have not submitted an annual return you will need to request permission to change your financial year.

Contact us to request a change to your financial year..

Published 12 November 2018
Last updated 10 December 2018 + show all updates

1. 10 December 2018

   Information added for newly registered charities who want to change their financial year or period.

2. 12 November 2018

   First published.