New donations and loans guidance for Members of the UK Parliament: Sponsorship

The following payments do not count as sponsorship:1

• admission charges for conferences, meetings or other events 
• the purchase price of, or any other charge to access, publications
• commercial rate payments for adverts in publications

While these payments do not count as sponsorship, they may instead be a different type of donation. If a payment is not sponsorship, you should consider whether the payment is another type of donation, such as a gift of money or money spent paying costs you have incurred.

Admission charges

Admission charges for your events will not count as sponsorship. For example, conference entry passes or an admission fee to attend an event organised by you or on your behalf.

However, if you charge or are paid more than the value of the service provided at the event, this extra amount will be a donation if this is more than £500.2  Please see common examples of sponsorship for more guidance and examples of this.

Adverts in publications

Payments made to place adverts in your publications at the commercial rate will not count as sponsorship. For example, you may produce publications promoting policies for these to be adopted by a party. This exemption only applies to advertising in publications and does not include other forms of advertising, such as event banners. 

To work out whether payments made to place adverts in a publication are a donation, you must work out the commercial rate to charge for these adverts. The commercial rate will be the average rates for similar adverts offered by commercial providers.

If someone pays more than the commercial rate for an advert in a publication, the full amount of the payment will be sponsorship. This is because the exemption would no longer apply.