Volunteer agreement template

What a volunteer agreement is, and what the law says

No law requires a volunteer agreement. GOV.UK’s guide Volunteer opportunities, rights and expenses (last updated 27 May 2015, and still current) says: “The volunteer agreement is not compulsory, but sets out what you can expect from the organisation you’re volunteering for. It does not form a contract between you and the organisation.” It lists what one usually explains: the level of supervision and support, the training, whether the volunteer is covered by the organisation’s employer’s or public liability insurance, health and safety, and the expenses the organisation will cover. The same page tells volunteers: “You do not have a contract of employment as a volunteer, so you do not have the same rights as an employee or worker.”

The Charity Commission’s guidance How to manage your charity’s volunteers (published 23 May 2013 and not changed since) explains why the wording matters: “Your charity could get into legal problems if you don’t clearly distinguish between its paid staff and volunteers. It’s possible for volunteers to claim they have the same rights as employees, including claiming unfair dismissal for example.” On the role description it advises: “It’s important that the role description could not be confused with an employment contract or job description. For example it must not require volunteers to work particular hours.” That is the Commission’s advice on avoiding employment status, not a statutory rule, and it is written for charities in England and Wales.

What actually decides a volunteer’s status is the law on workers and employees, and three sources shape a volunteer agreement:

• Section 44 of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, which applies across the UK, takes a voluntary worker for a charity, voluntary organisation, associated fund-raising body or statutory body out of the minimum wage only if they receive no money beyond expenses actually incurred or reasonably estimated, and no benefits in kind beyond subsistence, reasonable accommodation and training for the role (section 04).
• X v Mid Sussex Citizens Advice Bureau [2012] UKSC 59, where the Employment Tribunal found that no contract existed, with a volunteer agreement headed “binding in honour only” among the evidence (section 03).
• Groom v Maritime and Coastguard Agency [2024] EAT 71, where the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that “volunteer” is not a term of art and that the label on the documents does not decide the question (section 04).

Volunteer agreements are therefore evidence of the relationship a charity intends. It helps when the reality matches it, and it does not help when the reality does not.

A volunteer agreement template, clause by clause

This example volunteer agreement is illustrative. It is written for a fictional charity, Brackenford Befriending Scheme, whose volunteers visit and phone older people who live alone. Replace the names and the bracketed details with your own, and keep its verbs: the charity says what it will do, and asks and hopes for the rest. Put the version number and the date it was last reviewed at the foot.

1. About this agreement. “This agreement sets out what you can expect from us and what we hope for from you. It is binding in honour only: neither of us intends it to create a legal relationship, and you can stop volunteering at any time.”
2. Your role. “You will be volunteering as a befriender. The role description we gave you on [date] explains what the role involves and who you will be visiting or phoning.”
3. Your contact and support. “Your contact is [name, role] in our volunteering team. They will meet you every [period] to see how things are going, and you can call them during [hours]. Outside those hours, [name] covers.”
4. Induction and training. “We will give you an induction on [date] and the training you need for the role, including our safeguarding training.”
5. Time. “The role usually involves about two hours a week. We hope you can give that time, and we are flexible: we understand when you cannot. Please let your contact know when you are away, so the person you visit is not left waiting.”
6. Expenses. “We will repay the out-of-pocket expenses you actually incur while volunteering for us, such as bus fares or mileage on agreed journeys, when you send us receipts or a mileage claim under our expenses policy. We do not pay for your time.”
7. Insurance. “Our [public liability and employers’ liability] insurance covers you while you volunteer on our behalf.”
8. Health and safety. “We will tell you about the risks in the role and how to stay safe, including our lone visiting arrangements. Please tell your contact about any accident, near miss or worry.”
9. Safeguarding and checks. “If the role needs a DBS check, we will tell you which check and why, and apply for it at no cost to you. We will go through our safeguarding policy with you and tell you who to speak to if you are worried about someone.”
10. Confidentiality and data protection. “We ask you to keep confidential information about the people we support to yourself, while you volunteer and afterwards, except when you need to tell us about a worry for someone’s safety. Our privacy notice explains how we use your own personal data.”
11. Fair treatment. “We will treat you fairly and with respect, and we will not discriminate against you. Our equal opportunities policy applies to volunteers as well as staff.”
12. Raising concerns. “We encourage you to raise concerns: if something about your volunteering is not working for you, please talk to your contact or to [name]. If we have a concern about your volunteering, we will talk to you about it and follow our volunteer problem-solving process.”
13. Changes. “We will keep you informed of changes to your volunteer role, to the policies and procedures that apply to it, and to this agreement.”
14. Ending. “You can stop volunteering whenever you choose; we would be glad if you told us, so that we can thank you and look after the person you visit. We may also decide to end the arrangement, and if we do we will explain why.”
15. Receipt. “Signed to show that you have received and read this agreement, version [number] of [date].” The signature records receipt; it is not a promise to do anything.

Three things are missing on purpose: a required number of hours or shifts, a notice period, and any reference to a disciplinary or grievance procedure. Section 03 explains why. The detail sits in the policies and procedures the agreement points to rather than in the agreement: the role description, the safeguarding policy, the expenses policy, the privacy notice and the code of conduct. The Commission’s guidance adds two points the template reflects: “Volunteers aren’t paid for their time but should be paid for any out-of-pocket expenses”, and “Make sure your charity’s insurance covers your volunteers. Even if your charity doesn’t employ staff, you may still decide to take out employers’ liability cover for volunteers.” It also notes that “DBS checks are free for volunteers.”

Wording that keeps it a volunteer agreement

The leading case on a volunteer agreement headed “binding in honour only” is X v Mid Sussex Citizens Advice Bureau [2012] UKSC 59. A volunteer adviser had been told at interview “that there would be no binding legal contract”, and this “was confirmed in her case by her signature of a volunteer agreement headed: ‘This agreement is binding in honour only and is not a contract of employment or legally binding’”. The Employment Tribunal “concluded that no legally binding contract came into existence”. Her claim was for disability discrimination under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, so the question for the Supreme Court was whether EU law required protection for volunteers anyway; it held that it did not: “there is no scope for reasonable doubt about the conclusion that the Framework Directive does not cover voluntary activity.” The Equality Act 2010 has not changed this: its employment provisions cover work under a contract (section 83(2)(a)), and a volunteer with no contract is outside them.

The case does not mean the charity owes volunteers nothing. It concerned discrimination law in employment and occupation. The charity’s safeguarding and health and safety arrangements should still cover its volunteers, and its insurance should be checked to make sure it does, which is why the template promises them.

What the case does show is that the tribunal treated the agreement’s language, and what the volunteer was told about it, as evidence. To avoid creating obligations that read like a contract, write the whole document in the language of hopes and expectations:

• “You must”, “you are required to” becomes “we ask” or “we hope”.
• “Duties”, “job description” becomes “what the role involves” and “role description”.
• “A minimum of eight hours a month”, “rota commitment” becomes “the role usually involves about…”, with no consequence for giving less.
• “Four weeks’ notice” becomes “we would be glad if you let us know”.
• “Disciplinary procedure”, “gross misconduct”, “dismissal” becomes “our volunteer problem-solving process”, which the volunteer code of conduct guide explains.
• “In return for your services we will provide…” becomes a plain list of what the charity does for every volunteer, with nothing offered beyond expenses and the training for the role.

Wording is only half of it. The words describe a relationship; if the reality is a payment that looks like pay, the heading will not hold, as the next section shows; and a rota that volunteers are chased for missing turns the hoped-for time back into the required hours the Commission says a role description must not set.

What turns a volunteer into a worker anyway

In Groom v Maritime and Coastguard Agency [2024] EAT 71 (9 May 2024), the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that a volunteer coastguard was a worker when he attended activities for which he was entitled to be paid. Its summary is the clearest statement of the law: “‘Volunteer’ is not a term of art, and volunteers hold no special status as a matter of law. The legal status of any volunteer depends upon analysis of the particular relationship under which the volunteer’s services are provided.” The agency’s volunteer documents “created a clear right to remuneration in respect of many activities, and it was irrelevant that the Claimant had to submit a claim for payment and that many volunteers in practice did not do so.” On the label, the judgment says that “use of the description voluntary agreement is not determinative”, and that “a tribunal should be astute to look beyond the labels used in documents that may not reflect the reality of the relationship.”

The minimum wage rule draws the line in money. Section 44 of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 says a worker employed by a charity, a voluntary organisation, an associated fund-raising body or a statutory body does not qualify for the national minimum wage if they receive, and are entitled to, nothing except:

• money for expenses “actually incurred in the performance of his duties” or “reasonably estimated as likely to be or to have been so incurred”;
• subsistence, or “such accommodation as is reasonable in the circumstances”;
• training “provided for the sole or main purpose of improving the worker’s ability to perform the work which he has agreed to do”. Other training, beyond what a volunteer necessarily picks up doing the work, counts as a benefit in kind.

GOV.UK’s page on volunteers’ pay and expenses puts the same rule in plain terms: “You might be classed as an employee or worker rather than a volunteer if you get any other payment, reward or benefit in kind. This includes any promise of a contract or paid work in the future.” The Commission’s guidance says the same of rewards: a volunteer who receives one “may see this as a salary and they could be classed as an employee or worker”. The payments and promises to keep out of the agreement, and out of practice, are:

• a flat-rate or daily payment that is not a reasonable estimate of costs the volunteer actually incurs;
• gift vouchers, a cash thank-you, or free tickets, discounts and perks given in return for volunteering;
• training or a qualification beyond what the role needs;
• a promise of paid work, or of priority for a paid post, in return for volunteering.

The volunteer expenses policy guide covers what counts as an expense, the HMRC mileage rates and the claims record. The point for the agreement is that its expenses clause is where volunteer status is most easily lost, so it promises repayment of real costs and nothing else.

Issuing, changing and ending the agreement

Give the agreement at induction, go through it with the volunteer rather than posting it, and give them a copy to keep. For each volunteer, record:

• the version of the agreement they were given, the date, and who went through it with them;
• the version of the role description it refers to;
• their signature or acknowledgement, as a record of receipt;
• each revised version they were given, when and how;
• the date the arrangement ended, who ended it, and any concern raised at the time.

Keep that with the volunteer’s record; the volunteer records guide covers the rest of the record and how long to keep it. Re-issue the agreement when the role, the support or the expenses arrangements change, and when the law around the role changes.

The law around many volunteer roles changed on 1 September 2026. Section 139 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 amended Schedule 4 to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 in England and Wales, and section 140 made the same change in Northern Ireland, removing the supervision exemption from regulated activity with children. A person who teaches, trains, instructs, cares for or supervises children on more than three days in any 30-day period, or overnight between 2am and 6am, is now in regulated activity even when someone else supervises them, and the role is eligible for an enhanced DBS check with the children’s barred list. Scotland, which runs the PVG scheme, is outside the change, and the Disclosure and Barring Service’s announcement of the change says: “This change only impacts regulated activity with children. No change is being made to the definition of regulated activity with adults.”

DBS’s common misconceptions page says “The legislation does not create a new requirement for organisations to carry out DBS checks”, but it remains an offence for a barred person to engage in regulated activity, and for anyone to permit them to do so knowing or having reason to believe they are barred (in England and Wales, sections 7 and 9 of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006), and its announcement adds: “If a person’s role changes, or the way they do the role changes, organisations should check DBS eligibility again.” The Department for Education’s guidance for schools, colleges and childcare in England goes further for those settings: volunteers now in regulated activity “will need to have an enhanced DBS check with children’s barred list information”, while parents and carers who help out occasionally “will not need” that check. For charities, the Commission’s Safeguarding and protecting people for charities and trustees, updated on 8 October 2026, says: “Trustees should ensure their charity reviews affected roles and updates DBS checking arrangements where necessary.”

That review covers current volunteers as well as new ones: a supervised role that already met the frequency or overnight test came into regulated activity on 1 September 2026 without anything about it changing. Update the safeguarding clause, the check and the record together. The DBS record keeping guide covers what to keep about a check, and the duty to refer guide covers what happens when a volunteer in regulated activity is withdrawn because of harm or risk of harm.

Where the support the agreement promises actually happens

Every volunteer agreement promises two things that are conversations: a named contact, and a way to raise a problem. Volunteers rarely have a work email or an account on the charity’s systems, so in practice the contact is the coordinator’s personal mobile and the volunteers’ WhatsApp group. A befriender texts at eight in the evening to say the person she visits seemed frightened of a new visitor. A volunteer messages to say he is being pressed to take more shifts than he offered. A coordinator, trying to keep a good volunteer, replies that there might be a paid post for her in the spring.

Each of those is the relationship the agreement describes, and the third is close to the “promise of … paid work in the future” that GOV.UK says can make a volunteer a worker. If a volunteer later says they were promised something, pressured or ignored, the evidence is on personal phones, in a group the charity may not have set up and cannot search, and it arrives as screenshots chosen by whoever is unhappy. The charity’s copy of the agreement says what it intended; the messages show what happened.

The question for the next trustees’ meeting: when a volunteer raises a concern with their named contact, where is that message held, and could the charity read it for itself a year later? The volunteer WhatsApp groups guide covers how to run a group and when to move on.

Questions people ask

Is a volunteer agreement legally binding?

A volunteer agreement is not meant to be legally binding: GOV.UK says it “is not compulsory” and “does not form a contract between you and the organisation”. But the label alone does not decide it. In Groom v Maritime and Coastguard Agency [2024] EAT 71, volunteer documents that gave a right to payment for activities made the volunteer a worker for those activities; the description “voluntary agreement” was “not determinative”.

What should be included in a volunteer agreement?

GOV.UK says a volunteer agreement usually explains the supervision and support, training, insurance cover, health and safety and the expenses the organisation will cover. Add the role, a named contact, safeguarding and any checks, confidentiality and the privacy notice, fair treatment, how to raise a problem and how the arrangement can end, with a statement that it is binding in honour only – worded as hopes and requests, not obligations.

Do volunteers have to sign a volunteer agreement?

No: GOV.UK says the volunteer agreement “is not compulsory”. Many charities ask volunteers to sign to show they have received and read it; the signature records receipt, not a contractual promise.

Can a volunteer agreement say how many hours a volunteer must do?

It should not require them: the Charity Commission advises that a volunteer role description “must not require volunteers to work particular hours”, because volunteers who look like staff can claim employment rights. Say how much time the role usually involves and that the charity hopes the volunteer can give it. This is the Commission’s guidance about status risk, not a legal bar.

Do volunteers get the minimum wage?

Not if they are genuine volunteers or voluntary workers: section 44 of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 excludes a worker for a charity or voluntary organisation who receives nothing but expenses actually incurred or reasonably estimated, subsistence or reasonable accommodation, and training for the role. GOV.UK warns that any other payment, reward or benefit in kind, including the promise of paid work, can make a volunteer an employee or worker, with rights such as the minimum wage.

Official guidance and your next step

The primary sources are GOV.UK’s Volunteer opportunities, rights and expenses, the Charity Commission’s How to manage your charity’s volunteers and Safeguarding and protecting people for charities and trustees, section 44 of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, the judgments in X v Mid Sussex Citizens Advice Bureau and Groom v Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the DBS announcement and common misconceptions page on the change to regulated activity with children, and the Department for Education’s guidance for schools, colleges and childcare. For practical help with drafting, NCVO publishes Writing a volunteer agreement. Quotations are from those pages as checked on 29 and 30 October 2026.

This guide is a summary for England and Wales, with the UK-wide minimum wage rule and the Northern Ireland regulated activity change, and is not legal advice. Take employment advice if a volunteer claims worker status or before changing what you pay volunteers.

Then do one thing: read your current volunteer agreement for “must”, required hours, notice periods, disciplinary language and any payment beyond real expenses, and change each one you find before the next volunteer signs it.