Applications from organisations wishing to register as a charity exceeded 10,000 for the first time last year, according to recently published figures.
The Charity Commission received 11,162 applications to register as a charity in the year to December 2025, its figures show, a 16% increase from 2024 when 9,663 applications were made.
However, the number of charities in England and Wales registered in 2025 dropped to 4,767, compared to 5,157 in 2024, according to the commission’s register.
Of the new charities registered in 2025, 1,625 were classified under general charitable purposes, 1,456 were education or training charities and 1,265 were religious.
By comparison, of the 5,157 registered in 2024, 1,810 charities were registered under general charitable purposes, 1,560 for education or training charities purposes, and 1,287 were religious.
Meanwhile, the number of charities removed from the commission’s register increased in 2025 to 4,636, up from 4,525 in 2024 and 4,513 the year before.
At the end of 2025, 171,231 charities were on the register with a total annual income of £106bn and an expenditure of the same amount, according to commission data.
Jay Kennedy, Directory of Social Change director of policy and research, said that the register continues to grow as the number of registrations exceeds removals.
Kennedy said: “This has been the case for years, so the register continues to grow incrementally.”
Stuart Wood, Charity Commission head of registration, in August 2025, said that the commission would continue to apply stringent criteria to applicant charities.
Mergers decline
Meanwhile, the total number of mergers recorded by the commission in 2025 was 330, down from 519 in 2024 but up from 191 in 2023.
RSM UK, which counted multiple entries for a merging charity as one in its analysis to give an annual decline of 11% to 126 in 2025, said the drop could be due to financial reasons.
Hannah Catchpool, partner and head of not-for-profit at RSM UK, said: “Economic uncertainty was a key theme in 2025, which dampened charities’ appetite to merge.”
Catchpool added that cost pressures and other factors had resulted in charities being more tentative.
“Combined with subdued economic growth and constant speculation around policy changes, this has led charities to take a ‘wait and see’ approach before pressing ahead with big strategic decisions such as mergers,” she said.
