About the electoral register

By law, we have to supply some individuals and organisations with a copy of the full register if they request it, including:

• elected representatives (such as MPs and local councillors)
• candidates for local and national elections
• local constituency parties
• parish councils

The open electoral register is an extract of the full electoral register that is available to anyone who wants to buy a copy. Your name and address will automatically be added to the open register, unless you opt out.

You can opt out of the open register:

• when you register to vote online 
• during our annual canvass   
• by completing an online request form

Request a Certificate of Inclusion

If a credit reference agency asks you to prove that you are on the electoral register, we can give you a Certificate of Inclusion. 

This confirms that you are on the electoral register at your address.

We can only send the certificate to the person registered at that address, not to anyone else. 

We can't issue any certificates while we are updating the register as part of the Annual Canvass.

Each month, we must supply copies of the full electoral register to credit reference agencies. If you registered after the cut-off date, these agencies will not see your details until the following month.

Credit reference agencies will see your details even if you have opted out of the open register. 

Credit reference agencies use the electoral register to help calculate your credit score and decide if you should get credit.

If you’re not on the electoral register, it may have a negative effect on your credit score.

You must register to vote to appear on the electoral register. You don’t have to vote even after you have registered.

You can contact us to check if you are on the electoral register, but we can’t contact credit reference agencies for you.

By law, we must make a copy of the full electoral register available to anyone on request, even if you have opted out of the open register. 

You can only view the full Electoral Register in person, at our Civic Centre offices. 

You can’t view the register online, or search for people on it using this website.

The Electoral Commission has set some restrictions on what you can and can’t do when viewing the register.

You can:

• view the current live register 
• make handwritten notes

You can’t:

• view the register unsupervised
• take pictures of or photocopy the register
• look up anyone by name
• use the information for marketing purposes
• view historical registers

There are over 78,000 addresses on the register, split across six folders. We organise it in order of polling district, and then alphabetically by street name.

It only contains names and elector numbers, not other details, such as contact numbers or forwarding addresses.

We recommend that you let us know you want to view the register in advance by requesting an appointment online. 

This means we can bring out the most relevant section(s) of the register for you. 

After you submit an appointment request, the electoral services team will contact you to confirmed your appointment. If we are unable to accommodate the date you have requested, we will contact you to arrange another suitable alternative.