Gift Aid is a UK tax relief scheme that lets charities reclaim 25p of tax for every £1 donated by a UK taxpayer. For a £100 donation, your charity can recover £25 from HMRC, at no extra cost to the donor.

Who can claim

To claim Gift Aid, your charity must be:

  • Recognised as a charity by HMRC (this is a separate registration to the Charity Commission)
  • Registered for Gift Aid via Charities Online or paper form

Donations qualify only when:

  • The donor has paid (or will pay) at least as much UK income or capital gains tax in the tax year as the charity is reclaiming
  • The donor has provided a valid Gift Aid declaration authorising the charity to claim

The two things ThirdSectorBee tracks

Declarations are the donor’s written or recorded confirmation that they are a UK taxpayer and consent to Gift Aid being claimed on their donations. A declaration can cover a single donation, all future donations, or all donations including past ones (within HMRC’s four-year window).

Claims are the actual submission to HMRC requesting repayment of the tax on a set of qualifying donations. A claim references specific payments and a specific donor.

You need a valid declaration in place before you can include a payment in a claim.

The flow

  1. Collect a declaration when a donor first agrees to Gift Aid.
  2. Record each donation as a payment, ticking Tax relief eligible if the donor has a declaration.
  3. Periodically build a claim covering eligible payments and submit it to HMRC.
  4. HMRC processes the claim and pays your charity. The claim status moves from Submitted to Paid (or Rejected).

Why declarations matter so much

A donation without a valid declaration cannot be claimed for Gift Aid, even if the donor would otherwise qualify. Keeping declarations clean — recording the date, scope, and method of collection — is the most important record-keeping discipline for compliant Gift Aid claims.