Charities Regulator Annual Report 2025

The Charities Regulator recently published its 2025 Annual Report and we have detailed some of the main highlights from the report below.

• There were 11,466 charities on the Register of Charities at the end of 2025.
  • • 212 new charities were registered during the year.
    • 170 charities were deregistered.
    • Charity records on the Register received more than 363,000 public views during 2025.
• The Regulator reviewed more than 4,000 charity records and corrected over 5,000 errors during the year.
  • • Charity trustees are responsible for ensuring that the information recorded for their charity is accurate and kept up to date.
    • The Regulator aims to establish the Register as an authoritative source of information about registered charities in Ireland.
• Annual Reporting Compliance:
  • • The Regulator introduced its new traffic-light reporting system in April 2025.
    • The system shows whether a charity’s annual reports were filed on time, filed late or remain outstanding.
    • 20 charities were removed from the Register for failing to file their annual reports.
    • Two charities were prosecuted for failing to submit their annual reports.
• 681 concerns relating to charities were raised with the Regulator during 2025.
  • • This represented an increase of 38% compared with the 493 concerns received during 2024.
    • It was also slightly higher than the five-year average of 603 concerns.
    • More than 80 of the concerns received related to matters outside the Regulator’s remit.
• The main categories of concerns raised were:
  • • Governance standards, accounting for almost 40% of all concerns;
    • unregistered organisations holding themselves out as charities, accounting for 24%; and
    • financial control and transparency, accounting for 22%.
• The governance concerns raised included:
  • • dominant behaviour by an individual in a CEO, Chair or Founder role;
    • charity trustees not being provided with information requested from executive management, including detailed financial reports; and
    • charity trustees failing to exercise adequate oversight over the operation of their charity.
• The Regulator opened statutory investigations into four charities during 2025 and imposed sanctions on a fifth charity.
• The Regulator reviewed and updated its guidance on the role and responsibilities of charity trustees.
  • • The updated guidance emphasises that trustees retain overall responsibility for their charity’s governance, even where operational functions have been delegated to employees or a chief executive.
    • Charity trustees are legally responsible for ensuring that their charity is properly governed, complies with its legal and financial obligations and continues to advance its charitable purpose.
• The Regulator held or participated in more than 30 stakeholder events and meetings across the country during 2025.
  • • These included nine webinars addressing practical issues for charities and charity trustees.
    • A new stakeholder forum comprising charity trustees from a cross-section of the sector was also established.
• The Regulator carried out its first national survey of charity trustees, with more than 1,000 trustees participating.
  • • Eight out of ten respondents said they would recommend becoming a charity trustee.
    • 54% of respondents were in full-time employment, part-time employment or self-employment.
    • 41% of respondents were retired.
• The Regulator’s research found that eight out of ten members of the public considered charities and their work to be important.
  • • Trust and confidence continued to be an important factor in charitable giving.
    • The percentage of respondents who considered trust and confidence to be very important decreased from 80% in 2022 to 71%.
    • Public concerns included transparency, how donations are used and the level of charities’ administration costs.
• Research into the finances of registered charities found that, between 2019 and 2023:
  • • income among the charities examined increased by 37%; and
    • non-salary expenditure increased by almost 43%.
• Bequests accounted for 5.4% of donation income across the sector in 2023 and almost 10% of donation income among charities that received bequests.
  • • The average value of a bequest was €177,549.
    • The median value was €22,616.
• The development of a new digital platform continued during 2025.
  • • The platform is intended to improve communications, document management and reporting.
    • It is also expected to make regulatory information more accessible and the reporting process easier for charities.

NB: The content of this article is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute legal or other advice.

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