Guidance

Foreign Influence Registration Scheme: how to register online

Updated 1 July 2025

Submitting a registration

Register with the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme.

Find out if you must register for the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS)

Use the registration checker to determine if you are required to register for FIRS.

The guidance on the political influence tier and guidance on the enhanced tier also explain all the situations in which you are required to register.

When you must submit a registration

Enhanced tier arrangements must be registered within 10 days of making the arrangement or before doing any activities, whichever happens earlier.

Political influence tier arrangements must be registered within 28 days of making the arrangement.

Register an arrangement you are in

If you are the registrant, and you are registering for the first time, you need to:

• sign in to, or create, a GOV.UK One Login account
• create a personal FIRS account in your name
• select that you are registering as an individual in an arrangement
• verify your identity using the identity verification service in GOV.UK One Login
• upload a copy of your ID document
• provide your personal information
• provide details about the arrangement
• provide details about an activity in this arrangement

You may need to provide evidence to explain why some of your information should remain private and not appear on the public register.

You only need to add yourself as a registrant, verify your ID, and provide your personal information once. You will not need to repeat those steps for future registrations. Similarly, any previously added arrangement can be selected in future registrations so you can add activities to them.

To find out what information we need during registration, read the guidance on the information required at registration.

To learn more about verifying your identity, read the guidance on identity verification.

Register an arrangement your entity is in

If your entity is the registrant, and they are registering for the first time, you need to:

• sign in to, or create, a GOV.UK One Login account
• create a personal FIRS account in your name
• select that you are registering an entity in an arrangement
• provide details for your entity
• assign a Senior Responsible Officer (SRO), which can be you, to the registrant; the SRO needs their own FIRS account and must verify their identity before any registrations can be submitted
• provide details about the arrangement
• provide details about the activities in this arrangement

You only need to add your entity as a registrant once. You will not need to repeat that step for future registrations. Similarly, any added arrangements and assigned SROs can be selected in future registrations.

Only someone who is formally part of the entity, such as an employee, member, or volunteer, and has been given permission, can create the registrant. Third parties cannot create the registrant.

You may need to provide evidence to explain why some of your, or your entity’s, information should remain private and not appear on the public register.

To find out what information we need during registration, read the guidance on the information required at registration.

To learn more about verifying your identity, read the guidance on identity verification.

Share access with other users

You can give anyone with a FIRS account, including colleagues and third-party representatives, access to specific registrants on your FIRS account.     

When you add a user to a registrant on your FIRS account, they will receive an invitation. They must accept the invitation through their own FIRS account. When they have accepted, they have permission to:

• submit registrations on behalf of the registrant
• view all submitted registrations for the registrant
• add or remove other users
• change the role of other users

Verify your identity

To verify your identity, we will ask you to use GOV.UK One Login.

When you have completed the process to verify your identity with GOV.UK One Login, we will ask you to upload the same ID document in the FIRS. The upload is needed because the FIRS service has limited access to the data you provide to GOV.UK One Login.

Read guidance on identity verification.

Saving a registration

Your registration is saved at pre-defined points. The ‘Continue’ button changes to ‘Save and continue’ at the save points.

This means you can come back to complete a registration at your convenience, but you must comply with the timing restrictions for the tier of the registration.

Update details on a submitted registration

If certain information in your registration changes, you must tell us.

This is also called a ‘material change’ in the policy guidance.

You can update details in a submitted registration. Your submitted registrations can be accessed through your FIRS account home page. 

Read the guidance on the political influence tier and the guidance on the enhanced tier to see the changes we need to know about.

Find out if a person or entity you are working with has registered an activity 

The first place to look for a registered activity is the FIRS public register. 

If the activity is not on the FIRS public register, ask the registrant to download a copy of their registration as a PDF and share it with you. Use the contact form on your FIRS account home page to ask the FIRS Case Management team to verify the PDF for you. 

Download a copy of your registration

You can download a copy of any completed registration your account has access to. The copy will be a PDF and show the most recent version of the registration.

Register in another language

You must complete the registration in English or Welsh.

You will be asked to resubmit any registration submitted in any other language.

If you want the registration questions in Welsh, click ‘Cymraeg’ in the top right of the screen.

Public register

Information that appears on the FIRS public register

The list of information that appears on the FIRS public register is listed in the guidance on the public register.

When your information appears on the FIRS public register

Your information will appear on the FIRS public register as soon as possible after you submit your registration.

Only information from registrations containing activities that influence UK politics, also called ‘political influence activities’ in the policy guidance, will appear on the register.

Keep your information private

This is also called an ‘exception to publication’ in the policy guidance.

Information set to appear on the FIRS public register will remain private if publication could:

• cause serious harm to any individual
• harm a criminal investigation or proceedings or the prevention or the detection of crime
• harm the safety or interests of the UK
• seriously harm the commercial interests of any individual or entity

If you provide evidence to show that publishing some, or all, of the information creates one or more of those risks, it will remain private and not appear on the FIRS public register.

In the FIRS service, you can tell us if any of the information you are submitting should stay private. You must explain how publishing the information could create the risks you selected. You can upload documents to support your explanation. You must do this within 5 working days of submitting your registration to avoid your details being published.

If another person includes your details on a registration, and you want your details to remain private, you must contact the FIRS Case Management team. You may have to provide them with evidence to show how publishing your information creates one of the listed risks. You must do this within 5 working days of the registration being submitted to avoid your details being published.

You can read more about ‘exceptions to publication’ in the guidance on the public register.

Request for information to be removed from the FIRS public register

If the published information could create any of the risks mentioned earlier, you can request to remove the information from the FIRS public register.

Only the person who submitted the registration can request the removal of information from the public register.

If your details appear on the FIRS public register but you do not have access to the registration, you must contact the FIRS Case Management team.

You must explain how publishing the information could create the risks you selected. You can upload documents to support your explanation.

Get help

Contact the FIRS Case Management team

FIRS account holders can contact the FIRS Case Management team from their account homepage.

If you do not have a FIRS account, you can contact the FIRS Case Management team using a contact form that will be made available when the service launches.

Get support and guidance

There are three main ways to get help with FIRS:

• read the policy guidance
• use the registration checker
• contact the FIRS Case Management team

Glossary

Activity

An activity is any action that works towards the desired outcome of an agreement, or any action done under a direction from a foreign power or foreign power-controlled entity.

Arrangement

Any type of agreement, whether formal or informal, to do activities in the UK. This could include a contract, a Memorandum of Understanding, or an informal agreement to do activities in the UK.

Entity

Any organisation, business, club, charity, educational institution, established association, or similar group of people.

Registrant

Any person or entity in an arrangement that needs to be registered. A registrant can also be a specified foreign power-controlled entity, or an individual who is employed by a foreign power and is misrepresenting themselves or their activities.

Senior Responsible Officer

A Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) is a person who is responsible for making sure an entity complies with FIRS.