The UK General Election Deposit Loss Totaliser

If you want to be a candidate in a UK General Election, you must post a deposit of £500. If you don't get more than 5% of the vote, you don't get it back. Being unpopular is expensive – but how expensive, exactly?

Total deposit losses of the main parties

A bar chart showing the total deposit losses of the main UK political parties.

Percentage of candidates who lost their deposits

A bar chart showing the number of candidates fielded by each of the main UK political parties, and what proportion of them lost their deposit.

Browse main parties

Labour | Conservative | Liberal Democrat | UK Independence Party | Green Party | British National Party | Independent | English Democrats

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Footnotes

  1. Main parties are those who stood more than 100 candidates in the most recent election.
  2. Independent candidates are those who listed themselves solely as “Independent” – it doesn't include one-hit-wonder parties like “Wessex Regionalist” or “Fancy Dress Party”
  3. Most of these losses won't come out of party funds; deposits are typically raised by the candidates themselves, either from their own pockets or from local business sponsorship.
  4. By-elections are excluded from the data on this site.