How HMRC calculates the Gift Aid total
This support article explains how HMRC calculates the Gift Aid total for Gift Aid claims, and covers why there may sometimes appear to be discrepancies, based on rounding.
In this article:
Calculating Gift Aid
While a Gift Aid claim is made up of individual donations, HMRC aggregates Gift Aid per donor within each claim, and then calculates Gift Aid per donor (not per donation).
ExpensePlus correctly displays the Gift Aid based on how ExpensePlus does this.
Claims made prior to 17 April 2026 display the claim total based on the Gift Aid per donation (not the Gift Aid per donor that's detailed within this support article).
An example
In this example, there are 3 donations of £7.50 given by a donor (totalling £22.50). They appear to have a Gift Aid amount of £5.64 based on calculating the Gift Aid per donation, then totalling this).
|
|
Donation Amount | Gift Aid Amount |
| Dan Jones Donation 1 | £7.50 | £1.88 (25% of £7.50, rounded to the nearest penny) |
| Dan Jones Donation 2 | £7.50 | £1.88 (25% of £7.50, rounded to the nearest penny) |
| Dan Jones Donation 3 | £7.50 | £1.88 (25% of £7.50, rounded to the nearest penny) |
| Total | £22.50 | £5.64 (sum of the Gift Aid amounts above) |
However, this isn't how HMRC calculates the Gift Aid amount.
Instead, HMRC aggregates (adds up) the total donations given by the donor in the claim, and calculates Gift Aid per donor from this total.
|
|
Donation Amount | Gift Aid Amount |
| Dan Jones Total Donations | £22.50 | £5.63 (25% of £22.50 rounded to the nearest penny) |
In this example, the difference between the calculations is just 1p, but this difference can be greater, particularly as multiple donors can have differences like this.
The difference can be positive or negative (so on average, overall within a claim, there isn't typically a huge discrepancy between methods of calculating.
The important thing to remember is it's the way HMRC calculates Gift Aid that matters, and that is done by summing the donations by donor, then calculating Gift Aid on this amount.
Claim breakdown by category
When viewing a Gift Aid claim, the total will always display correctly (see below). See above for how this is calculated.
However, within the category breakdown table, the Gift Aid figures are calculated based on the donations per category (not the donations per donor), so adding up the amount of Gift Aid per category may not necessarily equal the Gift Aid total per claim (there may be a difference of a few pennies).
There isn't a way to necessarily get to the total of the claim, calculating Gift Aid by category (rather than calculating per donor as HMRC does).
The category breakdown table is there to provide an indicative breakdown.
To better understand the Gift Aid module, please view the module overview video here.