Postcode Lottery Grants UK 2026: How to Apply

A quick note on us: Grantsights builds grant-search tools for United States funders only, and none of them cover the UK yet. That's why the links below go to the Postcode Trusts and official UK sources. If UK coverage would help you, let us know where you are.

How Postcode Lottery Funding Works

According to Postcode Lottery, a minimum of 30% of each ticket goes to charities, and players raised over £236 million for charities and good causes in 2025. The company doesn't hand out grants itself. It runs draws on behalf of 20 charitable trusts, all registered with the Scottish charity regulator, and those trusts make the awards.

Only 6 of the 20 trusts take open applications from local organisations. The other 14, such as Postcode Children Trust or Postcode Culture Trust, work with charities they've already chosen. In the 360Giving data, 13 of these thematic trusts made 126 "Regular Award" grants worth £171.8 million in 2025, the largest to Barnardo's, compared with £22.0 million through the open community grants. So most of the money goes to big national partners, and the open route is a much smaller pot shared by thousands of applicants.

A naming point that confuses people: the lottery's own website now calls itself Postcode Lottery, while a Postcode Local Trust article from January 2026 still uses the older name, People's Postcode Lottery. Searches for either name lead to the same trusts.

The Six Postcode Trusts You Can Apply To

You apply to the trust that covers the postcode where your activities take place, not your registered office. Each trust's apply page has a postcode finder. Here's how the six compare, from their own pages read on October 29, 2026.

Sources: each trust's apply page, funding guide FAQs and organisation criteria page, read October 29, 2026. Trust names link to their entries on the OSCR register. Every round closes at 12 noon on its last day.

Wales is the standout. Postcode Community Trust funded 31% of applications in 2025, more than double the 13% at People's Postcode Trust, Postcode Neighbourhood Trust and Postcode Society Trust. In the north of England, 97% of 2025 awardees had income under £250,000, so a charity near the £1 million cap there faces long odds.

Decisions came about 4 to 5 weeks after each deadline in 2026: March 26, June 26 and September 29 for the February-cycle trusts, and April 27, July 28 and October 29 for the March-cycle trusts.

What a Postcode Trust Grant Looks Like in 2026

The trusts changed their main grant at the end of 2025. The 2026 funding guides describe it like this:

• Amount: up to £50,000 in total over three years, depending on your income. The trusts' eligibility checker tells you your maximum.
• The 75% rule: your request can't be more than 75% of the annual income on your most recent signed accounts. A charity with £20,000 income can ask for £15,000 at most.
• Payments: no more than 50% of the grant in any one year, with a minimum payment of £1,000. You choose the split when you sign the funding agreement, so the grant comes in two or three payments about 12 months apart.
• Unrestricted: the guides say they want to hear about the work your whole organisation does, not a single project.
• Each later payment has conditions. Before year 2 and year 3 money is released, you complete a short review form and a new funding agreement, and the trust can withhold payments if you no longer meet its due diligence checks.

Eligible organisations: registered charities (Charity Commission for England and Wales, or OSCR), community interest companies with an asset lock under Schedule 1 or 2 (not Schedule 3), and community benefit societies registered with the Financial Conduct Authority. You need annual income between £10,000 and £1 million, at least 12 months of operation with signed accounts, at least 3 trustees or directors, and no more than half of them related.

Funding themes. Your organisation's main aims must fit one of 4 themes, and you pick one per application:

The mental health theme is narrower than it looks. The guides say they're focused on organisations supporting specific mental health issues, so a general wellbeing café or walking group is unlikely to qualify. Physical activity and environment work moved out of the main grants into partnership programmes.

Priorities when oversubscribed. The guides say rounds are consistently oversubscribed and priority may go to organisations with income of £250,000 or less, those working in the most deprived 15% of areas on the English Index of Multiple Deprivation, those focused on marginalised groups, and postcode areas that haven't had funding in the last 12 months. These aren't eligibility rules, but they decide who goes through to full assessment.

What 934 Postcode Trust Grants in 2025 Show

Grantsights checked the trusts' funding guides against their published awards. Grantsights analysis of the trusts' 360Giving data covers every "Community Grant" made by the 6 regional trusts in 2025: 934 grants worth £21.97 million, awarded on six dates from March 31 to November 5, 2025. The data shows the switch to the higher ceiling happening mid-year.

Data: 360Giving data, "Grants awarded by the 20 Postcode Trusts since 2022", published by Postcode Lottery (registry entry updated January 30, 2026), downloaded October 29, 2026. Programme "Community Grant", the 6 regional trusts only, award dates January 1 to December 31, 2025.

In both halves of the year, 42% of grants were at the top of the range. Earlier years looked similar in size: 1,180 community grants worth £21.1 million in 2023 and 1,287 worth £21.2 million in 2024. So the total pot has stayed at roughly £21 million to £22 million a year while the maximum grant doubled. Fewer, bigger awards is the likely result in 2026, which fits the low success rates the trusts now publish.

Who got the money. Of the 934 grants, 500 (54%) went to charities registered in England and Wales, 119 (13%) to Scottish charities and 293 (31%) to registered companies; 228 recipients had "CIC" in their name. So CICs are a real share of winners, as long as they have the right asset lock.

A case in point from the higher-ceiling rounds: Action East Devon received £50,000 from Postcode Local Trust in October 2025 to keep running four peer support groups for 11 to 25 year olds. In November 2025, TYKES Young Carers received £50,000 from People's Postcode Trust for respite and support services, and Climbing Calm CIC received £14,946 from Postcode Neighbourhood Trust for climbing sessions for autistic teenagers. All three are in the published data.

Limits of this data. The file stops at December 31, 2025, so it shows none of the 2026 multi-year rounds. It records grants made, not applications refused, and each amount is the total award, not a yearly payment.

Who Can't Apply for Postcode Lottery Grants

The trusts' "we do not fund" lists rule out more organisations than most funders do. According to the 2026 funding guides, you can't apply if you're:

• a company limited by guarantee that isn't a registered charity, a constituted voluntary group, or an excepted or exempted charity (these are sent to partnership programmes)
• a public body or statutory organisation, including NHS trusts and NHS charities, parish councils and town councils
• a school, college, university, nursery, preschool or parent teacher association
• an organisation with solely religious objects, or one outside Great Britain
• funded by any Postcode Trust in the last 12 months, counted from the date the money reached your account
• part of a national network whose national body is a long-term Postcode Lottery partner; the guides name Home-Start, Riding for the Disabled, the Scouts, Girlguiding, Trussell, Mind, the Woodland Trust and the Wildlife Trusts
• banking with an electronic money service rather than a UK bank; Wise, ANNA, Moneycorp and Tide accounts aren't accepted

The money also can't pay for medical research or clinical treatment, the promotion or practice of religion, animal welfare (therapy animals with a human focus can be considered), regranting to individuals or other groups, reserves, or anything already spent.

Northern Ireland isn't covered: the Postcode Lottery isn't available there, and the trusts don't fund outside Great Britain.

Options If You Can't Apply for the Main Grants

The trusts fund some excluded groups through partners. Each trust site lists these partnership programmes, and the partners run them:

• Small groups (income under £25,000, England): Groundwork's Grassroots Grants offer unrestricted grants of £500 to £2,000. The Local Trust's page said 2026 applications opened on January 7 and close in September 2026.
• Schools: Learning through Landscapes' Local School Nature Grants give £500 of outdoor learning equipment plus 2 hours of expert training. The 2026 window ran from January 23 to March 13, 2026.
• Sports groups: Sported runs grants of £1,000, with a small number of larger grants up to £25,000, for community organisations using sport for social purpose. The trusts say any organisation whose main aim is sport or physical activity should go this way.
• Environmental groups: Postcode Green Trust runs green grants with The Wildlife Trusts for nature recovery and climate projects across England, Scotland and Wales.

Two other routes aren't open applications. Millionaire Street grants go to good causes near winning postcodes: Postcode Community Trust says it's "not an open access grant fund" and contacts eligible groups itself. The data shows 337 Millionaire Street grants in 2025 worth £11.3 million, with a median of £30,000. The £5 million Dream Fund took expressions of interest from March 25 to July 31, 2026 and is now closed.

If you're a community group without charity status, our community grants UK guide and National Lottery Awards for All guide cover funders that accept unregistered groups.

How to Apply for a Postcode Lottery Grant, Step by Step

The process takes 6 steps, and most of the work happens before the round opens:

1. Check eligibility early. Use the trusts' eligibility checker, which also gives your maximum request. Do this before round dates are announced so you aren't rushed.
2. Find your trust. Use the postcode finder on any trust's apply page, entering the postcode where your activities happen. You can only apply to one trust per round.
3. Draft from the question document. Each apply page offers a Word copy of the application questions. Use it: the guides say you can't save the live form.
4. Line up your documents. You'll need a governing document showing your objects, asset lock and dissolution clause; your latest signed accounts with an income and expenditure breakdown; a bank statement from the last 90 days in your organisation's name; and a safeguarding policy if you work with children or adults at risk. Your organisation's name must match exactly across all of them.
5. Get 2 referees to agree. The FAQs ask for two contactable referees, such as a partner organisation, a past funder or a council contact, and say referees may be contacted 2 to 4 weeks after the deadline. Trustees and members don't count.
6. Submit inside the 8-day window, then wait. Decisions arrive by email about 4 to 5 weeks after the deadline. If you're successful, the trusts aim to pay within about 8 weeks of the deadline, and their FAQs say 8 to 12 weeks, depending on how quickly you return the funding agreement.

If you're turned down, you can apply up to twice in a calendar year, and the count resets each January. You'll usually get feedback, though the trusts warn that some strong applications get none because demand is so high.

If you're funded, you can't apply again until 12 months after the date your third payment would have been made, even if you chose two payments. In practice that's about three years from your first award.

What the Postcode Trusts Don't Tell You

The funding guides are clear and detailed. A few things only show up when you read the FAQs closely or look at the published grants.

Most of the open money is a small slice. Open community grants were about £22 million in 2025, against £171.8 million in Regular Award grants from the thematic trusts to the charities they choose. If you're a mid-sized charity, the open trusts are a realistic target, but they aren't the main channel for Postcode Lottery money.

Bigger grants, same pot. The total has sat near £21 million to £22 million a year since 2023 while the maximum went from £25,000 to £50,000. If that total holds, fewer organisations can be funded each year, and published success rates of 13% in three trusts are the honest picture.

Due diligence knocks out applications before anyone reads them. In its first 2025 round, Postcode Local Trust found 18 of 255 applications ineligible at the assessment stage. Its list of common reasons is a checklist worth following:

• accounts without an income and expenditure breakdown, or CIC filleted accounts with no profit and loss statement
• a missing independent examiner's report when the charity's income makes one compulsory (over £25,000 in England and Wales, per the Charity Commission's CC31 guidance (opens in a new tab))
• the income on the form not matching the accounts
• fewer than 3 trustees, or more than half of them related
• a screenshot of a register entry instead of the full governing document
• accounts overdue with the regulator, or more than 60 days late

Being a local branch can rule you out. If your national body is a Postcode Lottery partner, you're ineligible even if your branch is a separate charity. Check the partner list before you spend time on the form.

The North and South are the toughest. Neighbourhood and Society Trusts each funded 13% of applications in 2025, and the Neighbourhood Trust gave 97% of awards to organisations under £250,000 income. Larger charities in those regions are competing for very little.

Don't fake a wellbeing project as mental health. The trusts spell out that general wellbeing or social activities don't meet the mental health theme. Picking the wrong theme is a common mistake, and the guides say applications without clear theme alignment are ineligible.

When Postcode Lottery Grants Are the Wrong Fit

• Groups under £10,000 income or without charity status: see grants for small charities in the UK and the partnership programmes above.
• CICs with a Schedule 3 asset lock or no asset lock: our grants for community interest companies guide covers funders that accept them. The GOV.UK guidance on forming a CIC (opens in a new tab) explains the asset lock.
• Heritage projects: the National Lottery Heritage Fund guide covers £10,000 to £10 million grants for buildings, collections and nature.
• Scottish charities wanting more options: see funding for charities in Scotland.
• Churches and faith groups: our grants for churches in the UK guide covers funders that accept religious organisations.
• A wider search: our charity grants UK overview lists the other main trusts and lottery funders.

Sources Checked

All sources were read or downloaded on October 29, 2026:

• Postcode Lottery, Apply for Funding (opens in a new tab), Charities FAQ (opens in a new tab), Licence Details (opens in a new tab) and charities page (opens in a new tab)
• Postcode Local Trust, funding guide overview (opens in a new tab), funding themes (opens in a new tab), organisation criteria (opens in a new tab), supporting documents (opens in a new tab), funding timeline (opens in a new tab), we do not fund (opens in a new tab), FAQs (opens in a new tab), partnership grants (opens in a new tab) and Due Diligence Focus (opens in a new tab) (January 13, 2026)
• Apply pages, funding guides and FAQs of People's Postcode Trust (opens in a new tab), Postcode Community Trust (opens in a new tab), Postcode Neighbourhood Trust (opens in a new tab), Postcode Places Trust (opens in a new tab) and Postcode Society Trust (opens in a new tab)
• Postcode Community Trust, Millionaire Street Grant Fund (opens in a new tab); Postcode Dream Fund (opens in a new tab)
• 360Giving Data Registry: Postcode Lottery, "Grants awarded by the 20 Postcode Trusts since 2022" (CSV, registry entry updated January 30, 2026)
• Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, register entries for the 6 trusts (linked in the trust table above)
• Charity Commission, independent examination of charity accounts (CC31) (opens in a new tab) and safeguarding duties for charity trustees (opens in a new tab)