What counts as a regulated activity?

How section 22 and the RAO fit together

Section 22 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA) says an activity is a regulated activity if it is an activity of a specified kind, carried on by way of business, and it relates to an investment of a specified kind or, for some activities, is carried on in relation to property of any kind. Schedule 2 to FSMA describes the broad territory. The Treasury then specifies the actual activities and investments in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order 2001, usually called the RAO.

Part II of the RAO lists the specified activities. Part III lists the specified investments. Most of the time you need both: an activity from Part II carried on in relation to an investment from Part III. The wording of each article matters, because the definitions are often wider or narrower than their everyday meaning.

The RAO changes regularly. Deferred payment credit, often called buy now pay later, came into the regime on 15 July 2026, and new cryptoasset activities are being brought in. The FCA’s Perimeter Guidance manual, PERG, explains how the FCA reads many of the articles, although it is guidance rather than law.

What are the main groups of regulated activities?

The table below shows the main families of activity and where the rules for each are found. It is a map of the territory, not a complete list, and every row has its own definitions and exclusions.

Two points are easy to miss. First, agreeing to carry on many of the RAO activities can itself be a regulated activity under article 64. Second, some activities, such as debt collecting or operating a lending platform, relate to agreements or systems rather than to a traditional investment, which is why the table describes families rather than products.

What does by way of business mean?

An activity is only regulated if it is carried on by way of business. There is no single numerical test. The factors the FCA points to include how regular and continuous the activity is, whether there is a commercial element, its scale, and the proportion it bears to your other activities. PERG 2 discusses these factors and says none of them is likely to be conclusive on its own.

For some activities the bar is set by a separate order, the Carrying on Regulated Activities by Way of Business Order. For accepting deposits, for example, the question is broadly whether you hold yourself out as accepting deposits on a day to day basis or accept them other than on particular occasions. For many investment activities, the question is whether you carry on the business of engaging in that activity. These are different tests, so the business element needs to be looked at activity by activity.

The financial promotion restriction uses a different trigger, in the course of business. The FCA reads that as needing a commercial interest on the part of the person communicating, which need not be direct, rather than a business of carrying on the activity itself. A one-off arrangement may fall outside the first test and still be caught by the second.

Where the UK element comes in

The general prohibition applies to activities carried on in the United Kingdom. Section 418 of FSMA treats some activities as carried on in the UK even where the customers or part of the activity are abroad, for example in some cases where the business is run from an establishment in the UK. An overseas firm dealing with UK customers may also be inside the perimeter unless an exclusion such as the overseas persons exclusion applies. How exclusions work

Your marketing is a separate test

The financial promotion regime uses its own lists, set out in the Financial Promotion Order, of controlled activities and controlled investments. They overlap with the RAO but are not the same. A business that carries on no regulated activity at all, such as a company raising money by issuing its own shares, can still be making financial promotions. How the marketing test works and why the two tests are separate.

Common misunderstandings

When a written opinion helps

Working out which article applies, whether the business element is met and whether an exclusion takes you out is the core of a perimeter analysis. A written legal opinion applies those definitions to your actual model and documents, and is often what a bank, payment provider or investor wants to see. How written opinions work