How do I check to see if a charity is legitimate?
Search the free Charity Commission register for England and Wales by the charity's name or registration number. The listing shows its aims, trustees, finances and any regulatory action taken against it. Absence from the register does not always mean a scam, so check the exceptions too.
The quickest legitimacy check for a charity in England or Wales is a register search. The Charity Commission, the registrar and regulator for those two nations, keeps a public register you can search at no cost by charity name, number, date of registration or the area where the charity operates. Each entry tells you what the charity does, who its trustees are, its income and expenditure, and whether the Commission has taken any actions against it.
[1][2][4]What the register entry tells you
- The charity's stated work and aims, so you can see whether the cause matches what a collector or advert claimed.
- The trustees, which you can compare against names the charity itself publishes.
- Finance information such as income and expenditure, giving a rough sense of scale and activity.
- Any actions the Charity Commission has taken against the charity, including statutory inquiries and other regulatory activity.
- Registration details, including the charity number, which you can cross-check against the number printed on appeal materials.
A worked example
Suppose, hypothetically, a doorstep collector says they represent a small education charity and shows a printed number. You search the register by that number. If the entry matches, you read the aims and trustees and confirm the details line up. If the number returns nothing, you try the name. Still nothing, and you have a mismatch worth taking seriously. Before concluding it is fake, though, consider the register's known gaps: charities with income below £5,000 may not have registered, and some charities are excepted or exempt from Commission regulation. A missing entry is a warning sign to investigate further, not proof of fraud on its own.
[1]Watch for regulatory action
The Commission publishes case reports, inquiry reports and regulatory alerts on live cases, and it opens statutory inquiries where there are serious concerns. Recent examples include an inquiry into an education charity over governance and financial management concerns, and a housing charity where the Commission restricted transactions. If a charity you are checking appears in that material, read the details before deciding whether to give. An inquiry is not automatically a verdict that a charity is illegitimate, but it is information you would want before donating.
[3][4]A decision checklist
- Find the charity on the register by name and by number, and confirm both match.
- Read the stated aims and check they match the appeal you received.
- Note the trustees and income level, and treat big mismatches with the story you were told as a red flag.
- Check whether the Commission has taken any action against the charity.
- If the charity is absent, ask why: it may be below the registration threshold, excepted or exempt, or it may not be a charity at all.
- If something looks wrong, you can raise a concern with the Charity Commission, which assesses concerns and investigates serious ones.
One limitation to keep in mind: the register covers England and Wales only. Scotland and Northern Ireland keep separate registers, so a genuine charity operating there may not appear in a Commission search. If your check leaves doubt, a sensible next step is to contact the charity directly using details from its register entry rather than the contact details on the fundraising material, and confirm the appeal is genuinely theirs.
[1]Next step: before your next donation, run the charity's name and number through the register, skim its finances and any recorded Commission actions, and only give once the details line up.
[1][2]Sources and dates
- https://www.gov.uk/find-charity-information · accessed 2026-10-18
- https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/ · accessed 2026-10-18
- https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/charity-commission · accessed 2026-10-18
- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/charity-commission-annual-report-and-accounts-2025-to-2026/charity-commission-annual-report-and-accounts-2025-to-2026 · accessed 2026-10-18