The Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) is a new legal form for a charity. From this page you can access all the information we have about CIOs. The two sets of regulations which complete the legal framework for CIOs have now been agreed by Parliament and we will start accepting applications to register completely new organisations that wish to be CIOs from 10 December 2012. Please see the implementation timetable for full details of when you can apply to register your CIO.
Below is a list of all the issues covered in our guidance on CIOs. However, as the CIO is a new structure there may be additional areas on which we need to produce guidance. If you have any other questions or issues which you think we need to cover, please let us know.
You must send us this information electronically.
Under regulation 54(1)(e) of the Charitable Incorporated Organisations (General) Regulations 2012 (SI 2012/3012) the Charity Commission may specify the means to be used for sending any document or information required or authorised to be sent or supplied by a CIO to the Commission. In accordance with this regulation the Commission specifies that any such documents or information must be sent to us by electronic means. We will not deal with any such documents or information which are not sent to us electronically.
Full details of the electronic tools you can use to make changes to your CIO or to file those changes can be found in our trustees handbook.