Communities Secretary Steve Reed has announced that the government will introduce amendments to the Representation of the People Bill capping political donations from overseas voters at £100,000 for their first year in the UK, with additional restrictions on corporate giving and new pre-candidacy declaration requirements. The Bill is scheduled to return to the House of Commons on 14 July.

The overseas-voter cap extends a measure already announced in March: a £100,000 annual ceiling on donations from British citizens resident abroad, backdated to 25 March 2026. The new proposals add a residency condition — donors moving to the UK must be based here for a minimum period before their contributions can exceed that limit. Reed set out the package in a formal letter to parliamentary party representatives on 25 March, ahead of the government publishing its full response to the Rycroft Review the following day.

The corporate-giving provisions are technically significant. Under the proposals, the permissibility of company donations would be assessed against post-tax profits over the preceding five years rather than revenue alone — a tighter threshold that would disqualify donations from loss-making or low-margin companies regardless of turnover. Election candidates would also be required to declare donations above £2,230 received before they formally become candidates, closing a gap in the existing reporting regime.

The Rycroft Review

Philip Rycroft — a former senior civil servant — was commissioned in December 2025 to conduct an independent review of foreign financial influence and interference in UK politics, in direct response to concerns about hostile-state meddling in British democracy. The government published its response to his report on 26 March 2026. The crypto ban announced in March is part of the same package, having been legislated alongside the overseas-elector cap.

The Electoral Commission published its own response to the Rycroft Review on 30 June 2026, focusing on improvements to the political finance system to address foreign interference — a signal that the regulator sees the current framework as inadequate, independent of whatever the government legislates.

The Reform UK context

The timing is not incidental to any particular party, but the figures on the register make the policy stakes legible. Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based billionaire, gave £12m to Reform UK during 2025 — including a single £9m donation, the largest ever made to a UK party by a living individual — and a further £3m in January 2026. Crypto billionaire Ben Delo donated £4m to Reform between January and March 2026. Both donors are British citizens. Under the proposed overseas-elector cap, future donations at that scale from individuals resident abroad would be prohibited.

Nigel Farage faced accusations from rival parties in April 2026 of breaking parliamentary rules by failing to declare a cryptocurrency donation — a separate, parallel pressure point on the party's financial transparency. The crypto ban now embedded in the Rycroft response directly addresses that channel.

Transparency International has separately called for a £10,000-per-donor annual cap — far tighter than the £100,000 ceiling the government has chosen — alongside stricter declaration rules and tighter constraints on corporate giving.

What to watch for 14 July

The 14 July Commons stage is the moment to watch for the detail of how the residency-condition provision is drafted. The minimum period an overseas voter must spend in the UK before exceeding the cap is the critical variable: too short and the measure is easily navigated; too long and it may attract challenge on the grounds of disproportionality for British nationals with legitimate cross-border lives.

The corporate profits test will face scrutiny from those representing business-linked donors, since five-year post-tax profit averaging can produce counterintuitive results for cyclical or capital-intensive companies. The pre-candidacy declaration threshold of £2,230 mirrors existing in-campaign thresholds and is unlikely to be contested heavily, but it does shift compliance obligations earlier in the electoral cycle — something party compliance officers will need to build into their processes well before the 2029 general election.

The Rycroft package, taken together, represents the most substantial revision to political finance law since the Electoral Administration Act 2006. Whether it proves durable will depend partly on how the residency condition survives parliamentary scrutiny and, eventually, legal challenge.