Street collections

Before you apply for a street collection, you have to make sure you have permission from the land owner.

If you are collecting on the High Street, you will need to contact our City Centre Management team to ask for permission.

You may also need to contact:

To apply for a street collection permit, you will need to:

sign in or register for an account
complete the application
upload your supporting documents
submit the form

To complete the application, you will need:

contact details for your organisation and any other organisation benefitting
your planned dates, location(s) for the collection and details of the collection (such as how many collectors you will authorise)
your plans for expenses and payments

You must include either the constitution of the charity you are collecting for, or a letter of consent from them authorising your collection.

The street collection permit will be valid for a specific location, and we will only issue one permit per day for that location.

Once we receive your application, we will:

review your application within 14 days
notify you of our decision
inform you of how you should carry out the collection, and what you need to do afterwards
inform you of where you should publish a statement about your collection

If you carry out a street collection without a permit, you could receive a fine of up to £200.

In some circumstances, such as national disasters or global appeals, we can process collection applications more quickly. You can contact us for further information.

Within one month of your collection, you need to supply a street collection return, to inform us of:

how much you collected
any expenses you incurred
how the charity are using the proceeds

You also need to publish a statement within one month of the collection. The statement needs to include:

who was responsible for the collection or sale
the charity or fund the money was donated to
the date of the collection or sale
the amount you collected
your expenses
the amount you donated to the charity

Which system to use

We upgraded our application system on 10 July 2023. This means that if we granted you a licence under the old system (before 10 July), you need to report your return under the old system.

If we granted your licence under the new system (on or after 10 July), you need to report your return using the new system.

If you applied for a licence using the old system

To supply a street collection return, you will need to:

If you are having trouble downloading the application form, you can read our guidance.

If you applied for a licence using the new system

To supply a street collection return, you will need to:

sign in or register for an account
select 'return'
complete the application
upload your supporting documents
submit the form

To complete the street collection return form, you will need:

details of proceeds
details of any expenses or payments
information on how the balance was distributed