When HMRC will issue a penalty charge for not registering or maintaining a trust
Find out about penalties HMRC may charge if you're a trustee and you fail to register or to maintain details of a trust.
If you’re a trustee of a trust within the scope of the trust registration service, you need to:
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Register your trust with HMRC.
If you fail to take either of these steps within a given time limit, HMRC can charge you a fixed penalty of £5,000.
We will not charge any interest on penalties.
When HMRC will issue a penalty
Registering a trust is a new requirement and we recognise that trustees may not be familiar with the process.
We will not charge you a penalty if we find out that you’ve failed to register or to maintain a trust, as long as you take action to correct this within the time limit we set.
Penalty charges are issued on a case-by-case basis.
What you need to do
We’ll send you a penalty letter if we find out that either:
- you’ve not registered a trust that should be registered
- your trust’s information is out of date on the register
The letter will tell you what you need to do and will give you a time limit to take action.
Paying a penalty
You can make a payment on a penalty by:
- Direct Debit
- using our online service and your bank details
- bank transfer
- credit or debit card
- cheque
If you disagree with a penalty charge
You can request a review or appeal against a penalty if you do not agree with our decision.
Last updated 20 December 2023 + show all updates
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The guidance on when HMRC will issue a penalty has been updated to remove references to deliberate behaviour.
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First published.