Profit and loss (PL) return

Key facts

Data to be reported:	Reporting institutions’ income and expenditure as well as additional items needed for the compilation of the UK National Accounts
Who has to report:	Firms that have over £1 billion total assets (BT40) on their balance sheet (BT) return Check who needs to submit returns
Data uses:	Multiple, including: Bankstats tables (Bank of England) Balance of Payments (ONS) National accounts (ONS)
Frequency:	Quarterly or annually depending on reporter Quarterly – total assets in excess of £1 billion and significant contributor to selected items that feed into the UK National Accounts Annually – total assets in excess of £1 billion
Coverage:	Go to reporting criteria to find detailed calculations used to determine eligibility

Deadlines

Firms need to report figures as at the last calendar day of the reporting period.

Go to reporting criteria to download deadlines for all returns for all available years.

Reporting period	Reporters impacted	Deadline (5pm UK time)	Concessionary deadline (5pm UK time)

Deadlines for 2027 will be released in November 2026.

Instructions 

Overview of reported data

This return captures reporting institutions’ income and expenditure. It is broken down into two parts. Part 1 covers all transactions, while Part 2 covers transactions with non-residents only. Part 1 covers:

• Interest receivable and payable broken down by instrument
• Dividends receivable and payable
• Fees and commissions receivable broken down by product and total fees and commissions payable
• Dealing profits including net spread earnings
• Operating income and expenditure including intra-group transfer pricing
• Other items affecting profit and loss, but which do not constitute operating income and expenditure for National Accounts purposes
• Tax

It also captures:

• Currency breakdowns – sterling, euro, other – with foreign currencies to be reported in sterling
• The broad economic sectors of counterparties – for example, banks versus UK private sector or UK public sector
• Provisions for bad and doubtful debts
• Number of full-time employees

Part 2 covers non-resident breakdowns of Part 1 relevant to the Current Account of the Balance of Payments. This comprises of data on:

• Interest, dividends, fees & commissions, and intra-group transfer pricing vis-à-vis non-residents
• Share of profits and losses attributable to non-resident parents, and the share of profits and losses due from non-resident branches and subsidiaries

In every return firms also need to include:

• their company name
• their legal entity identifier (LEI) or firm reference number (FRN)
• the first day of the reporting period
• the last day of the reporting period

Core documents

You can find detailed instructions in the documents below. 

Profit and Loss (PL) specific documents

Document	Notes for PL reporters	Last updated
PL definitions (PDF)	Includes details of what’s in scope and definitions of PL-box line items	May 2023
Form PL box codes (XLSX)	An excel file containing worksheets where a breakdown of the PL box items is given	Mar 2016
Form PL internal validations (XLSX)	PL box line items and the relevant equations to validate their data points are detailed. It also includes equations linking PL to BG box items	Mar 2016
Form PL/BG FAQs (PDF)	Answers to frequently asked questions regarding Form PL and BG	Sept 2016

All statistical returns

Document	Notes for all reporters	Last updated
Classification of accounts guide (PDF)	Includes detailed guidance on how to classify counterparties plus country lists	24 Apr 2024
General notes and definitions (PDF)	Includes an introduction to preparing returns and definitions of common terms	24 Apr 2024