Gift Aid on online donations: how to capture it on your charity website (2026)

HMRC paid £1.88 billion in Gift Aid to charities and community amateur sports clubs in the year to April 2026, up 10% on the year before, and 67,650 charities received it. Yet in 2024, the Charities Aid Foundation estimated that up to £560 million a year was going unclaimed. A lot of that gap opens up on the donation form. Here’s how to capture Gift Aid properly on your website, and how to claim it without handing a slice to a platform.

Why Gift Aid gets missed online

Gift Aid lets a charity reclaim the basic rate tax a donor has already paid, which adds 25p to every £1 they give. It costs the donor nothing. Even so, CAF’s research found that only 55% of people who had given in the past year claimed it, and one in five people with a household income over £50,000 weren’t claiming it.

A later CAF survey found 26% of donors only sometimes use Gift Aid, and nearly a quarter (24%) said they don’t always remember. That’s a form design problem, and it’s one you can fix.

There’s a step before that, too. In our census of UK charity websites, we found no visible way to give on 41% of sites that ask for donations. If that’s you, start there.

What a valid online Gift Aid declaration needs

There’s no set design for an online declaration. HMRC’s guidance on Gift Aid declarations says it must include:

1. Your charity’s name.
2. The donor’s full name and home address.
3. What it covers: this donation only, or past, present and future donations.
4. A statement that the donor wants Gift Aid to apply. A tick box on an online form does this.
5. A tax statement explaining that the donor must pay at least as much Income Tax and/or Capital Gains Tax as all the charities they support will claim that tax year, and that they’re responsible for any difference.

Most charities base their wording on HMRC’s template forms. A typical online version of the tax statement reads:

I’m a UK taxpayer and understand that if I pay less Income Tax and/or Capital Gains Tax than the amount of Gift Aid claimed on all my donations in that tax year, it is my responsibility to pay any difference.

It’s also good practice to tell donors to let you know if they want to cancel the declaration, change their name or address, or no longer pay enough tax.

How to ask so more donors say yes

Getting the legal wording right is the easy part. Getting people to tick the box takes a bit more thought.

• Show the extra in pounds. “Your £20 becomes £25 at no cost to you” beats “Gift Aid adds 25%”. Update it as the donor changes their amount.
• Ask after the amount, before payment. Donors have committed by then, and they’re not yet distracted by card details.
• Give it its own step or panel. A Gift Aid box buried among marketing consent options gets missed.
• Don’t pre-tick the box. Let the donor choose Gift Aid themselves, so the declaration clearly reflects their decision.
• Make addresses quick. A postcode lookup removes the most tedious part of the form, and gets you a cleaner address for the claim.
• Handle company gifts. Donations from a company aren’t eligible for Gift Aid, so offer an “I’m giving on behalf of my company” option and hide the Gift Aid step when it’s ticked.
• Cover future gifts for regular donors. For monthly giving, a declaration covering past, present and future donations saves you asking again.

Keeping the records

You must keep a record of every declaration, whether it’s written, verbal or online. According to HMRC, most charities must keep declaration records for six years from the end of the accounting period they relate to. Declarations covering future donations must be kept for as long as they’re in use, then for six years from the last donation.

For an online form, that means storing the declaration with the date, the wording the donor saw and the donation it covers. Keep this data secure: it’s a name, a home address and a giving history in one place.

Getting the claim to HMRC

Most charities claim through HMRC’s Charities Online. You can upload a schedule spreadsheet of up to 1,000 donations at a time, or claim through eligible software. Your charity needs to be recognised by HMRC for tax purposes and have Charities Online added to its HMRC account first. The activation code comes by post and can take a week, so don’t leave it until a deadline.

Claim deadlines depend on how your charity is set up, so check HMRC’s guidance for your structure. Claiming little and often, monthly or quarterly, also helps your cash flow.

Should a platform claim it for you?

Many donation platforms will claim Gift Aid on your behalf, which saves time. Some charge for it. JustGiving and Enthuse both keep 5% of the Gift Aid they claim. Here’s what that costs, assuming half of your donation value is Gift Aided:

Other platforms fold Gift Aid into their fees in less obvious ways. CAF Donate’s Direct Debit collection fee is 2% of the gross donation, which includes the Gift Aid.

Doing it yourself costs nothing but time. If your donation form captures declarations properly and exports them in HMRC’s format, a claim is a regular upload rather than a project. Whether that’s worth it depends on your volume and on who in your team would do it. Our comparison of UK donation platforms sets Gift Aid fees alongside everything else you pay.

A quick checklist for your donation form

• Your charity’s name appears in the declaration
• You capture full name and home address, ideally with postcode lookup
• The Gift Aid box is unticked by default and sits on its own
• The tax statement is shown in full beside the box
• The uplift is shown in pounds and updates with the amount
• Company donations skip the Gift Aid step
• Regular gifts use a declaration that covers future donations
• Each declaration is stored with its date and wording, securely
• You can export claims in a format HMRC’s Charities Online accepts

Questions charities ask

How Tinwell handles Gift Aid

Tinwell, the WordPress donation plugin we build, captures Gift Aid declarations on your own donation form and exports a CSV ready for HMRC’s Charities Online. There’s no fee on your Gift Aid. If your CRM already handles claims (Donorfy, for example), you can keep claiming from there.