UK Charity Register Scraper

UK Charity Register Scraper

Scrape official UK charity data by registration number from the CCEW, OSCR, and CCNI registers. Get charity names, status, finances, trustees, and contact details in one structured dataset. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

The UK charity registers hold public data on every registered charity, but searching them one by one across three different regulators is slow and manual. This actor reads the official public feeds directly from the Charity Commission for England and Wales, OSCR, and CCNI, given a list of registration numbers. It returns each charity's full public record in a single flat row, ready for analysis or database import.

Who uses it	What they scrape UK Charity Register for
Due diligence analysts	Verify a charity's registration status, financial health, and trustee names before approving a grant or partnership.
Nonprofit consultants	Build a benchmark dataset of comparable charities by pulling their income, spending, and contact details.
Data journalists	Investigate patterns across UK charities by collecting financial and governance data for a specific set of organisations.
Fundraising platforms	Validate charity registration details and current status before listing them for public donations.

What it does

This Actor collects UK charity records by registration number from the three official charity regulators and returns each charity as one structured row.

• 🏛️ Multi-regulator coverage: Fetches data from the Charity Commission for England and Wales, OSCR (Scotland), and the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland in one run.
• 🔢 Bulk registration lookups: Provide a list of charity numbers and the actor resolves each one against the correct register automatically.
• 📋 Structured output: Every charity returns as a flat row with its name, status, income, spending, trustees, and registered address.
• ⚡ No API key needed: Reads the public charity register feeds directly, with no registration, OAuth, or rate-limit headaches.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with UK Charity Register data

🔍 Run due diligence on a grant shortlist.

A foundation officer pastes 50 charity numbers into the actor and receives each charity's current status, latest income, and trustee board, flagging any that are overdue on filings or have recently removed trustees.

📊 Build a sector financial benchmark.

A researcher collects income and expenditure data for 200 charities in the same category, then compares their financial ratios to identify outliers and sector norms.

🗺️ Map charity contact details for outreach.

A campaign group scrapes the registered addresses and phone numbers for a list of local charities to invite them to a regional event.

✅ Validate charity status on a donation platform.

A fundraising website runs nightly checks on its listed charities to confirm none have been removed from the register or changed their legal name.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
Official data	Pulled directly from the three UK charity regulators' public registers, not a third-party cache.
Batch processing	Submit up to a million charity numbers in one run and get each record back in a consistent schema.
Cross-border coverage	One actor handles English and Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish charity numbers without switching tools.
Ready to analyse	Flat CSV or JSON output with no nested objects, so you can open it in Excel or load it into a database immediately.

How it compares

No other Store actor targets UK Charity Register the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	UK Charity Register Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When UK Charity Register changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor with a list of UK charity registration numbers, including CCEW, OSCR (SC prefix), and CCNI (NIC prefix) formats, and set a maximum number of charities to collect per run. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "charityNumbers": [
    "220949",
    "1110447",
    "1062157"
  ],
  "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
  "charityNumbers": [
    "220949",
    "1110447",
    "1062157"
  ],
  "maxItems": 200
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.015 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$1.50
1,000 results	$15.00
10,000 results	$150.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the UK Charity Register Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to UK Charity Register through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/uk-charity-register-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results for my list of charity numbers?

Check that your charity numbers include the correct prefixes: 'SC' for Scottish charities and 'NIC' for Northern Irish ones. English and Welsh numbers are digits only. Also verify the numbers are still active on the official register.

The run is taking a long time. Is that normal?

Yes, the actor queries the official registers sequentially to avoid overloading them. A large list of several thousand charities will take time. You can reduce the 'Maximum charities' setting to test with a smaller batch first.

Some fields are empty in my output. Why?

Not every regulator publishes the same level of detail for every charity. Smaller charities may not report income bands, and trustee names are not always publicly listed. The actor returns whatever the official register provides.

I see an error about an unrecognised charity number prefix.

The actor recognises numbers starting with 'SC' for Scotland and 'NIC' for Northern Ireland. All other numbers are treated as Charity Commission for England and Wales registrations. Remove any extra letters or formatting from your input.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Which charity regulators does this actor cover?	It covers the Charity Commission for England and Wales (CCEW), the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR), and the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland (CCNI). You provide the registration number and the actor routes it to the correct register.
What format should I use for Scottish charity numbers?	Scottish charity numbers must include the 'SC' prefix, for example 'SC037738'. The actor uses this prefix to identify which register to query.
Can I scrape charities by name or keyword instead of registration number?	No, this actor works from a list of known registration numbers. If you need to search by name or keyword, you would first need to obtain the registration numbers from the charity registers' own search tools.
Is there a limit to how many charities I can scrape in one run?	You can set the maximum up to 1,000,000 charities per run. The actual time taken depends on the number of charities and the response time of the official registers.
Do I need an API key or to register an app?	No. The actor reads the public-facing charity register feeds directly. There is no OAuth flow, no app registration, and no API key to manage.
What data fields does the actor return?	It returns the charity name, registration number, status, income, expenditure, trustee names, contact address, and the regulator it was sourced from. The exact fields available depend on what each regulator publishes.
Can I export the results to Excel?	Yes. You can export your dataset to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML directly from the Apify platform after the run completes.
What happens if I provide an invalid charity number?	The actor will attempt to look it up and, if no matching charity is found on any register, that row will be skipped or marked with an error status in the output.

Related actors

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Charity Commission for England and Wales, Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, and Charity Commission for Northern Ireland. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.