Donations can only be accepted from certain sources, which are mainly UK-based.1
Please see who can you accept donations from? for details on which sources are permissible.
Before you accept any donation of more than £50 for the purpose of meeting candidate spending, you must take all reasonable steps to:
make sure you know the true identity of the donor
check that the donation is from a permissible source2
How long do you have to check permissibility?
When you receive a donation, you have 30 days to conduct permissibility checks and return it if it is impermissible.3
If you keep a donation longer than 30 days, you are deemed to have accepted it.4
If you keep an impermissible donation after this time, you may commit a criminal offence and we may apply to court to have it forfeited to us for payment into the Consolidated Fund5
. If you’ve accepted an impermissible donation, you should tell us as soon as possible.
Even if you have made a permissibility check in connection with an earlier donation from the same source, you should consider whether to make a fresh check for each subsequent donation.
You should keep a record of all your permissibility checks to show that you have followed the law.
If the donation isn’t from a permissible donor, or for any reason you can’t be sure of the true identity of the source, please read How do you return a donation? for further guidance on the actions you must take.