Guidance

When HMRC will issue a penalty charge for not registering or maintaining a trust

Find out about penalties HMRC may charge if you're a trustee and you fail to register or to maintain details of a trust.

From:
HM Revenue & Customs
Published
20 January 2023
Last updated
20 December 2023 — See all updates

If you’re a trustee of a trust within the scope of the trust registration service, you need to:

  1. Register your trust with HMRC.

  2. Keep the information held on the service up to date.

If you fail to take either of these steps within a given time limit, HMRC can charge you a fixed penalty of £5,000.

We will not charge any interest on penalties.

When HMRC will issue a penalty

Registering a trust is a new requirement and we recognise that trustees may not be familiar with the process.

We will not charge you a penalty if we find out that you’ve failed to register or to maintain a trust, as long as you take action to correct this within the time limit we set.

Penalty charges are issued on a case-by-case basis.

What you need to do

We’ll send you a penalty letter if we find out that either:

  • you’ve not registered a trust that should be registered
  • your trust’s information is out of date on the register

The letter will tell you what you need to do and will give you a time limit to take action.

Paying a penalty

You can make a payment on a penalty by:

  • Direct Debit
  • using our online service and your bank details
  • bank transfer
  • credit or debit card
  • cheque

If you disagree with a penalty charge

You can request a review or appeal against a penalty if you do not agree with our decision.

Updates to this page

Published 20 January 2023
Last updated 20 December 2023 show all updates

  1. The guidance on when HMRC will issue a penalty has been updated to remove references to deliberate behaviour.

  2. First published.

Sign up for emails or print this page

Contents