Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO)

A Charitable Incorporated Organisation has been a type of structure available to charities since 2013. It is an incorporated organisation but it is not a company. It is only registered with the Charity Commission, not Companies House.

It provides a company like status to a charity that allows its trustees to act without the fear of personal liability attaching to trustees’ actions and doesn’t rely on trustees entering into contracts in their own personal name.

Given the company like status of a CIO, it has the full range of insolvency solutions available to it in times of financial difficulty.

A CIO can enter into:

  • Voluntary Liquidation (also known as voluntary winding up)
  • Administration
  • Company Voluntary Arrangement

A CIO may also be dissolved in a similar way to that in which a company can be dissolved.