Who funds the Liberal Democrats?
£67.7m in reported donations, from 7725 donations.
Source: Electoral Commission register ↗ · since 2019-01-01 · as reported up to 2026-04-29. Company ownership from Companies House.
Where the money comes from
- Individuals — 57.5% · £38.9m (4264 donations)named people on the electoral register
- Public funds — 23.1% · £15.7m (391 donations)state funding (e.g. Short money)
- Companies — 10.4% · £7.0m (751 donations)registered at Companies House — owners look-up-able
- LLPs — 0.1% · £81k (3 donations)registered at Companies House
- Trusts — 2.1% · £1.5m (66 donations)a trust; the EC records limited detail
- Unincorporated associations — 6.7% · £4.6m (2250 donations)under electoral law, need NOT disclose who funds them
What we can't see
6.7% (£4.6m) came via unincorporated associations, which under electoral law need not disclose who funds them. And money deliberately routed to hide its origin won't appear on this register at all. This is a limit of the public record — not an all-clear. What you see above is what's been declared; treat the faded end of the bar as "we can follow this less far", not as proof of anything.
We can also check where a company donor's owners are based (via Companies House), but not where an individual donor lives — the register doesn't publish it, and a UK-registered donor can be resident abroad. So a large individual donor based overseas would show here with no such note.
Largest reported donations
- £8.0mLord David Sainsbury Individualsaccepted 2019-12-01
- £525kJohn Faulkner (dec'd) Individualsaccepted 2023-10-12
- £500kMr David Tilles Individualsaccepted 2020-06-26
- £500kMr David Tilles Individualsaccepted 2019-11-23
- £460kHamworthy Hall Trustees Trustsaccepted 2020-01-03
- £458kElectoral Commission. Public fundsaccepted 2020-06-19
Each donation is a public Electoral Commission record. Company notes are from Companies House filings.
For the record — company donors
- 12 company donations (£140k) are from companies where Companies House records at least one person with significant control as based outside the UK. This is a record of where a controller is based — a UK company donating is lawful; make of it what you will.
- 206 company donations (£1.1m) are from companies that file dormant or micro-entity accounts — i.e. their own filings disclose little financial detail.
- 0 donations in this window were recorded by the Electoral Commission as impermissible or returned.
Definitions and method: these are facts from each company's own Companies House record, shown without interpretation. "Based outside the UK" means the country of residence/registration recorded for a person with significant control — not a claim about the source of the money.
Dig deeper — where else to look
We focus on party-level money from the public record. For things we deliberately don't do — your MP's interests, lobbying, think-tank funding — these independent trackers do it well:
- The source: Electoral Commission registerevery donation here, searchable at source
- Who funds your MP — Westminster AccountsTortoise & Sky News: money around individual MPs, by name or postcode
- Who funds your MP — WhoFundsThemmySociety: MPs' financial interests
- Think-tank funding — Who Funds You?openDemocracy: how openly think tanks disclose their donors
- Lobbying meetings — Open Access UKTransparency International: who's meeting ministers
- Company ownership — Companies Housethe official register behind our company notes
Show the Working shows its working: every figure here links to the public register it came from. This is a snapshot of declared donations and may lag recent reporting.