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

This guidance aims to provide practical advice for anyone who wants to stand as a candidate or be an agent at a UK Parliamentary general election in Northern Ireland.

Standing for election can be complicated, but we hope that our guidance will make it as straightforward as possible.

Our guidance sets out the stages that candidates and their agents need to go through when standing at a UK Parliamentary general election.

It includes relevant factual material as well as links to sources of further information. Each section includes a number of forms and resources, which can be directly accessed via links in the text.
You can find out more in How to use our guidance.

Election timetable

If a by-election has been called, you will be able to obtain a copy of the specific timetable for that election please refer to the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland website.

Please note that data protection legislation applies to the processing of all personal data. Please contact the Information Commissioner's Office for further information about how the current data protection legislation affects you.

If you have any questions please contact the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland.

Terms and expressions we use

You will normally be doing enough to comply with the law if you follow this guidance.

We use ‘must’ when we refer to a specific requirement. We use ‘should’ for items we consider to be minimum good practice, but which are not legal or regulatory requirements.

We use ‘you’ to cover both the candidate and the agent in this guidance. When we talk about donations, we use ‘you’ to refer to the person who is responsible at the time for dealing with donations.