The Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme for Churches

Money from the plate, without declarations

The Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme lets your church claim a top-up on loose cash gifts, even though nobody has made a declaration. Since April 2017, contactless card gifts count too.

Each gift must be £30 or less and collected in the UK. You can’t split a bigger gift into smaller ones to make it fit.

How much you can claim

You can claim on up to £8,000 of small gifts in each tax year. At 25%, that’s up to £2,000 a year for your church.

The amount is also limited by your Gift Aid. Small gifts can be no more than 10 times the Gift Aid gifts you claim in the same tax year. So if you claim on £300 of Gift Aid gifts, you can claim on up to £3,000 of small gifts.

Who can claim

Your church must claim Gift Aid in the same tax year. It also can’t have had a penalty on a Gift Aid or small donations claim in that year or the year before.

Gifts that already have a Gift Aid declaration don’t count, and nor do membership fees. Each gift is either Gift Aid or a small donation, never both.

Churches with more than one building

If your church meets in two or more community buildings, you may be able to claim more. You can choose between one £8,000 limit for the whole church or £8,000 for each building, on gifts collected in that building’s local council area.

A building counts if charitable activities happen there at least 6 times a year, for at least 10 people who aren’t staff. They must be open to the public, with no entry fee.

Connected charities share one limit

Charities with the same or nearly the same purposes, or run by the same people, share one £8,000 limit. That can affect a church and a separate church hall trust, or a group of churches. Having one trustee in common isn’t enough by itself.

Records to keep after every collection

Count each collection and write down the total, the date, and how many of each coin and note. Two people counting is good practice. Keep contactless terminal reports too.

Keep these records for 6 years after the end of the tax year.

Claim within two years

Small donations have a shorter deadline than Gift Aid. You must claim within 2 years of the end of the tax year the money was collected in. You claim in the small donations section of your Charities Online claim.