Guidance for Candidates and Agents at UK Parliamentary general elections in Northern Ireland

Cryptoassets

Crypto donations: advice on proposed changes to the law

The UK Government has announced that it plans to introduce a moratorium on donations in crypto assets. The intention is for this to apply retrospectively to any donations received from 25 March 2026 onwards. These measures would be introduced as part of the Government’s Representation of the People Bill.

The Government’s intention is to apply this to donations to parties; non-party campaigners; elected office holders; party members and members associations; recall petition and referendum campaigners. It would also apply to candidates (subject to legislative consent in Scotland and Wales).

The proposals would include crypto payments of £50 or under, which are not currently treated as donations in electoral law.

Once the proposed changes to the law come into force, recipients would have 30 days to return or forfeit any crypto donations received on or after 25 March 2026.

No changes have yet been made to the law. Our guidance continues to reflect the law as it currently stands. However, you may wish to consider taking action now so that you are prepared for any future changes to the law, including:

Seeking identifying information for any crypto payments of £50 or under, so you can return these donations
Ensuring that you retain sufficient crypto assets or the monetary equivalent to return these donations
Ensuring your crypto payment provider can support returning donations

You are already required to keep records of donations made in crypto assets so these can be reported as non-monetary donations.

This advice is provisional, based on the information currently available about these proposals. We will update this advice note once the Government publishes additional information. For further information, please see this ministerial written statement or contact MHCLG.

Cryptoassets are digital representations of value that are secured by encryption, use distributed ledger technology, and can be transferred, stored or traded electronically. Distributed ledger technology is a digital system that records details of transactions in multiple places at the same time instead of through a central data store – for example, a “blockchain”. Examples of cryptoassets include cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens and stablecoins. Cryptoassets are not legal tender in the UK are currently treated in the law as property, not currency. You can find more information about cryptoassets from the Bank of England.

The use of cryptoassets is growing rapidly and the laws and regulations on its use are currently evolving. As a candidate, you may have been contacted by potential donors interested in donating to you in cryptoassets to help you pay for your campaign spending. If you decide to accept donations in cryptoassets, you will need some understanding of how transactions in cryptoassets work, so that you can fulfil your legal responsibilities.

Cryptoasset donations are not prohibited in electoral law. However, because of the way the function, they present particular challenges and risks in meeting electoral law requirements in identifying donors and ensuring they are permissible.

If you are considering accepting donations in cryptoassets, we recommend you contact us first for advice. We are currently reviewing our approach to donations in cryptoassets, including discussing the legal requirements with crypto platforms so that we can understand their ability to enable candidates to fulfil their legal obligations if they accept donations in this form. We are also working closely with other UK regulators. As the market and regulatory regime develops we will update our guidance.

Identifying the donor

The same legal requirements apply to donations received in cryptoassets as other donations. The donation controls for candidates apply once you are officially a candidate.

You must collect sufficient information from every donor to ensure that you can:

identify and accurately record the donations you have received
properly check that each donation over £50 is from a permissible source
identify if multiple donations have come from the same source
return donations when required, where you cannot identify who the donor is, or if the donor is impermissible
report donations in your candidate return where required

If you are looking to collect donations in cryptoassets through a crowdfunding platform, you should check that the platform will give you access to the information you need on your donors before you create a crowdfunding page. You must not accept donations made anonymously, or if you are unable to identify who the donor is. For more information, please see the section on crowdfunding.

You should be especially cautious if there is any sign that donors are using mixers (services which obscure the true source of cryptoassets by combining assets from multiple sources), or using AI and other systems to split donations.

Valuing cryptoassets

The value of the cryptoasset will be its market value in GBP at the time that you receive it. For example, this may be the exchange rate of the payment provider used to make the transaction, or the market value on a major exchange at that time.

If the market value in GBP of any cryptoasset you receive is greater than £50, you must treat it as a donation and check the donor is permissible before accepting it.1 You must record donations over £50 which you accepted and returned in your spending and donations return.

As with other donations, donations of £50 or less are outside the scope of electoral law and you do not need to record or report them. However, it is an offence to attempt to evade the controls on donations.2 We therefore recommend that you scrutinise these payments carefully, given the risk of payments being used to evade permissibility restrictions.

Example A

A donor makes a donation to a candidate in cryptocurrency. The candidate’s election agent uses the exchange rate of the payment provider used to make the transaction to find out the market value of the cryptocurrency in GBP. At the time of receipt, the market value of the donation in GBP is £80.

As the market value of the donation in GBP is more than £50, the agent must check that the donor is permissible before accepting the donation.

Example B

A donor informs a candidate that they intend to donate to it in cryptoassets. They tell the candidate that the market value of the donation in GBP will be approximately £40.

A week later, the donor makes a donation to the party in a stablecoin and the market value of the donation in GBP at the time of receipt is instead £55. As the market value of the donation in GBP is greater than £50, the election agent must check that the donor is permissible before accepting the donation.

Reporting donations in cryptoassets

In line with guidance issued by HMRC and the Financial Conduct Authority, cryptoassets are considered property, rather than a currency or money. Donations received in cryptoassets must be treated as a non-monetary donation. This is also likely to apply to arrangements where the payment provider has converted a crypto donation into money before transferring it to you, sometimes known as a ‘crypto off-ramp’.

When you are reporting non-monetary donations, you must provide details of the nature and value of the donation.3 This must include the type and amount of cryptoasset. For example, you might report the nature of a donation as 0.2 Bitcoin

Diweddarwyd ddiwethaf: 7 Ebrill 2026