Every year, each charity registered in Scotland must send us an online annual return, along with annual accounts, a Trustees’ Annual Report and an external scrutiny report.

This is a legal requirement, and charities must send this information to us within 9 months of their financial year-end date.

Almost 20% of Scottish charities have a deadline in December. If your charity’s deadline is coming up soon, please ensure you are ready to submit your online annual return. If you are a charity user in OSCR Online, please log in to your account as soon as possible to ensure you have access.

Please note, our offices will be closed during the festive period and we will be unable to answer queries during this time. Our phone lines will close at 12 noon on Wednesday 24 December 2025 and will remain closed until 9.30am on Monday 5 January 2026.

How do I use OSCR Online to submit an online annual return?

If you are the principal contact for a charity or are responsible for submitting the online annual return, please log in to OSCR Online now to ensure you have access to the system.

Click here to log in to OSCR Online. Once logged in, you can update your charity’s details and add or remove charity users if necessary, as well as complete the online annual return.

On our website you will find guidance to help you use OSCR Online, including:

• How to submit an online annual return
• How to update your principal contact details
• FAQs including how to reset your password, add/remove users and update your charity details.

You can read more information about charity accounting and annual reporting in our guidance.

How do I know when my deadline is?

If you are unsure when your charity’s deadline is, you can check this on your Scottish Charity Register entry.

The Annual Information Submission History table shows your year-end date. The deadline to submit your online annual return is 9 months after this date. For example, when a charity has a financial year-end of 31 March its deadline date is 31 December.

Do I have to provide charity trustee details?

On 30 June 2025, the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) introduced new requirements for charity trustee information under the Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Act 2023. Providing charity trustee details will become a mandatory part of your charity’s 2025/26 online annual return.

If you haven’t already done so, we would strongly encourage you to update your charity’s trustee information as soon as possible to ensure the information we have remains accurate and up to date.

Full details on the information you need to provide, and how to upload charity trustee information using OSCR Online, can be found here: Managing charity trustee information using OSCR Online.

What information will be public on the Scottish Charity Register?

The information currently shown on the Scottish Charity Register will remain unchanged until early 2026.

From that point onward, only the first and last names of charity trustees will be published on the Register. The exact implementation date will be confirmed in due course.

At the same time in early 2026, OSCR will begin publishing annual reports and accounts in full on the Scottish Charity Register as they are received. This will apply to all annual reports and accounts received after the implementation date.

This marks a change from the current approach, where OSCR publishes accounts for certain charities depending on their legal form and income, with personal details redacted. Charities should carefully consider the personal information included in their accounts and only include the names or images of volunteers or beneficiaries where appropriate.