UK giving calendar 2026–27

The Royal British Legion says Remembrance Sunday is always the second Sunday in November. Its 2026 key dates are the Poppy Appeal’s national launch on 22 October, the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall on 7 November, the March Past the Cenotaph in Whitehall on 8 November, and Armistice Day, with its Two Minute Silence at 11am, on Wednesday 11 November.

The Legion says the Poppy Appeal raises money for its work supporting serving personnel, veterans and their families, and reports that the appeal raised £56.6 million in 2025. The Legion is registered in England and Wales (219279) and Scotland (SC054446). Poppyscotland says it is part of The Royal British Legion.

The Legion is one of several Armed Forces charities, and they do different things. If you want a Remembrance gift to reach a particular kind of help, compare their remits first:

BBC Children in Need’s Appeal Night is on Friday 13 November 2026, according to the charity’s website. Like Comic Relief, Children in Need funds other organisations’ work rather than running services itself, so a gift reaches the projects it chooses to fund.

Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day is on Thursday 10 December 2026. The charity suggests a donation of “typically £2 for adults and £1 for children”, and says schools and workplaces can choose another day.

GivingTuesday UK’s website says: “This year, Giving Tuesday is on 1st December 2026.” It is not tied to one cause, and describes itself as “a day that encourages people to do good”. The site lists the Chartered Institute of Fundraising as its contact.

Big Give’s Christmas Challenge runs from 1 December to midday on 8 December 2026. Big Give says online donations to participating charities through its platform are doubled from a match pot made up of the charity’s own pledges and funds from Big Give’s Champion partners. Each charity’s pot is a set amount, so if doubling matters to you, check the charity’s campaign page before you give.

If you pay UK Income Tax or Capital Gains Tax, Gift Aid lets the charity claim an extra 25p for every £1 you give. GOV.UK says your donations qualify as long as they are not more than 4 times what you have paid in tax in that tax year. Read our Gift Aid guide or use the Gift Aid calculator.

With no set cause, start from what you want your gift to do: browse charities by type, see our editorial selections by theme, look at smaller charities, then compare up to four side by side.

Government figures for England show the scale. Councils’ autumn 2025 snapshot estimated 4,793 people sleeping rough on a single night, up 3% on 2024 (published 26 February 2026). Monthly data for December 2025 estimated 8,010 people sleeping rough at some point in the month and 3,536 on a single night. The snapshot and the monthly data are collected differently, so read them as separate measures.

Crisis says its Crisis at Christmas appeal has run since 1967. For Christmas 2026 it says it will again provide hotel rooms across London for people who would otherwise sleep rough, alongside day centres in the capital and frontline services across Britain, and expects to support 5,500 people.

The start of Ramadan depends on the sighting of the new crescent moon, so its dates are expected rather than fixed. Moon Sighting UK predicts that the new moon is born on 6 February 2027 at 15:56 GMT, will not be visible to the naked eye in the UK to Morocco region that day but will be on 7 February, and that Ramadan is “most likely to start on 8 February 2027”. Islamic Relief UK gives the same expectation: Ramadan beginning on the evening of Sunday 7 February, with the first day on Monday 8 February.

Islamic Relief expects Ramadan to end on the evening of Monday 8 or Tuesday 9 March, depending on the moon, and Eid al-Fitr on Wednesday 10 March if Ramadan runs a full 30 days. Moon Sighting UK says Shawwal, the month that begins with Eid al-Fitr, is most likely to start on 10 March 2027.

If you plan to pay Zakat in Ramadan, our Zakat and faith giving guide explains how to calculate it and compares what four UK Muslim charities say about the costs they take from Zakat and their “100%” policies. The Zakat calculator does the arithmetic with a silver price you enter.

Zakat al-Fitr (Fitrana) is a separate payment. Islamic Relief says it must be given before the Eid prayer and sets it at £5 per person; its page still referred to 2026 when we checked. Check the amount on the page of the charity you give through. Check any Ramadan appeal sent to you on social media or a messaging app against the charity’s own website before giving.