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  • your trust’s information is out of date on the register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.

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