A charitable company has two accounts deadlines, one month apart, from the same set of figures.

Almost every late filing we see in the social sector comes from the same place. Somebody knows the deadline. It is simply not the deadline that applies to their organisation, because a charitable company has one set, a charitable incorporated organisation has another, and a community interest company has a third that shares almost nothing with either.

Here is what each type actually has to file, to whom, and by when.

Work out which organisation you are first

Everything below depends on this and it is worth being precise, because "we're a charity" covers three quite different legal animals.

• An unincorporated charity — a trust or an association — deals with the Charity Commission only. It must register once its gross income exceeds £5,000.
• A charitable incorporated organisation is a corporate body registered with the Charity Commission and nothing else. It must register from the outset regardless of income, and it never appears at Companies House.
• A charitable company, usually a company limited by guarantee, is registered at both. It files with Companies House as a company and with the Charity Commission as a charity, and the two have different deadlines.
• A community interest company is a company, not a charity. It files at Companies House and with HMRC, and has no Charity Commission obligations at all. Our step-by-step guide to setting up a CIC covers the structure, and charity against CIC compares the two.

The Charity Commission: ten months

Registered charities in England and Wales must submit an annual return within 10 months of the end of the financial year. A 31 March year end means 31 January. A 31 December year end means 31 October.

What has to go with it depends on income:

• Under £10,000 — a registered charity reports its income and spending only. CIOs must complete the full annual return whatever their income.
• £10,000 to £25,000 — the full annual return questions, with no documents attached.
• Over £25,000 — the annual return, the trustees' annual report, the accounts, the independent examiner's or auditor's report, and a declaration that there were no serious incidents in the year that should have been reported and were not.

That last declaration is the one trustees sign without reading. You cannot truthfully make it while an unreported serious incident sits behind you, and the annual return cannot be completed without it. If something happened during the year that should have been reported and was not, report it before you file, not afterwards.

The Commission cannot fine you. What it does instead is arguably worse: the public register shows the accounts as overdue, in red, on the page every funder looks at before making a grant. Persistent default can also lead to a compliance case being opened.

The scrutiny thresholds move this autumn

For financial years ending on or after 30 September 2026, the thresholds that decide whether you need an independent examination or a full audit rise substantially, alongside the arrival of the new SORP. A 31 March 2026 year end is still on the old figures; a 31 March 2027 year end is on the new ones. The dates and the numbers are set out in our post on SORP 2026 and the new charity thresholds, and independent examination against audit explains what each level of scrutiny actually involves.

Companies House: nine months

If your organisation is a company — a charitable company or a CIC — accounts are due at Companies House within 9 months of the accounting reference date. First accounts after incorporation are due 21 months from the date of incorporation, which catches out almost every new organisation because the first period is longer than a year and the deadline does not feel like it is approaching.

Late filing penalties are automatic, and they are charged on the company regardless of whether it is charitable:

• Up to 1 month late — £150
• 1 to 3 months — £375
• 3 to 6 months — £750
• More than 6 months — £1,500

They double if the accounts are late in two successive financial years. A small charity that misses by four months twice running pays £750 and then £1,500, which for many is a whole grant's worth of core costs.

A confirmation statement is also due annually on the company's own review date, which is unconnected to the year end. The fee is £50 to file online.

CICs: the CIC34 and the fee

A community interest company files a community interest company report on form CIC34 alongside its accounts, on the same nine-month deadline, with a £15 filing fee. The report has to say what the company actually did to benefit the community, how it consulted stakeholders, and what directors were paid. Filing accounts without the CIC34 is a rejection, and the rejection does not stop the clock — the penalty runs from the original deadline, not from when you were told.

Paper filing ends in 2027

From 1 April 2027 all companies must file their accounts at Companies House using commercial software. The paper route and the older web filing services close. Small charities and CICs that have always hand-typed a set of accounts into the web form have about eighteen months to move to software or to an agent who files on their behalf. Worth planning now rather than in March 2027.

HMRC: when a return is actually needed

Charities are not automatically outside corporation tax; they are exempt on income and gains applied for charitable purposes. In practice:

• A charity must file a company tax return if HMRC issues a notice to file, or if it has taxable income that is not covered by an exemption. Where everything is exempt and applied charitably, the return is completed with the CT600E supplementary pages and no computation is needed.
• A CIC always files. It is an ordinary company for tax purposes and pays corporation tax on its profits — the point covered in our post on whether CICs pay corporation tax.
• The return is due 12 months after the end of the accounting period. The tax itself is due earlier, at 9 months and 1 day after the period end. Those two dates being different catches out more small CICs than any other rule in this article.

Gift Aid claims must be made within 4 years of the end of the accounting period the donations fall in, or the tax year for a charitable trust. Declaration records have to be kept for 6 years from the end of the accounting period they relate to — longer than the claim window, because HMRC can audit a claim after the window has closed. The small donations scheme has its own matching rule and is worth claiming alongside.

Payroll and pensions, if you employ anybody

Full Payment Submissions go to HMRC on or before each payday. P60s must reach employees by 31 May. P11D and P11D(b) forms for expenses and benefits are due by 6 July, with Class 1A National Insurance payable by 22 July electronically.

Automatic enrolment adds a cycle nobody diarises: every three years you must reassess and re-enrol eligible staff who previously opted out, and file a re-declaration of compliance with The Pensions Regulator within five months of the third anniversary of your original staging or duties start date.

Worked calendar: two organisations, both 31 March 2026

The figures are illustrative. Take a registered charitable company with gross income of £310,000 and a 31 March 2026 year end. It needs accruals accounts and an independent examination, because that year end falls before the thresholds change. The accounts go to Companies House by 31 December 2026. The same accounts, plus the trustees' annual report and the examiner's report, go to the Charity Commission with the annual return by 31 January 2027. Its confirmation statement falls due on whatever review date Companies House holds, quite possibly in July, and costs £50.

Now take a CIC with income of £96,000 and the same year end. Accounts and the CIC34 go to Companies House by 31 December 2026 with a £15 fee. Corporation tax on the year's profit is payable by 1 January 2027, and the CT600 is not due until 31 March 2027. If the directors wait for the return deadline before working out the tax, they will pay it three months late and be charged interest — on a bill they could have calculated in October.

What to do this week

1. Look up your own entry on the Charity Commission register and on Companies House. Both show your filing history and both show whether anything is overdue right now.
2. Check your accounting reference date at Companies House. It is not always the date you think, particularly if the first period was shortened or extended.
3. Write four dates in the diary from your year end: nine months, nine months and a day, ten months, and twelve months. Every deadline in this article is one of those four.
4. Add the confirmation statement review date separately, because it does not move with the year end.
5. If income is over £25,000, confirm who is doing the independent examination and that they are eligible, before the year end rather than after.
6. Check whether any serious incident from the year is unreported. That has to be dealt with before the annual return can be signed.
7. List every Gift Aid claim you have not yet made and check the oldest against the four-year window.
8. If you file accounts on paper or through the Companies House web form, book the change to software into next year's plan rather than 2027's.

Where we help

We prepare charity and CIC accounts, carry out independent examinations, file at Companies House and with the Charity Commission and HMRC to a single calendar, and put the trustees' annual report together so it meets the reporting requirements rather than restating last year's. Trustees get the dates in advance and a reminder before each one. Fixed fees from £39 + VAT a month. Get started.