Crime and Policing Act 2026 commencement tracker: what is actually in force, and what is not

Verified as at 21 September 2026. Next scheduled review: 26 October 2026, the next commencement date under SI 2026/960.

The Crime and Policing Bill and the Victims and Courts Bill both received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026, and both Acts are routinely written about as though they are law. Large parts of each are not in force. An Act passing and an Act taking effect are separate events, sometimes separated by years, and the departmental factsheets that most coverage relies on describe what the Acts will do without saying when, or whether, any of it has commenced.

This page records the position, section by section, with the commencement route for each. It is checked against the Acts as enacted and the commencement regulations themselves. It is not checked against factsheets, press releases or secondary reporting, which is the reason it keeps finding things those sources have wrong.

At a glance

• Is the Crime and Policing Act 2026 in force? Only in part. Three commencement instruments have been made (SI 2026/689, SI 2026/939 and SI 2026/960). Most of the Act's headline measures, and most of its new offences, have no commencement date yet. The risk of acting on the factsheet is real.
• In force now: the corporate criminal liability provision (s.250, from 29 June 2026), the begging-for-gain offence (s.12, 29 June), most of the intimate image provisions (ss.98 to 101 and 103, 29 June), the police barred and advisory lists (from 21 September), and the other provisions commenced by SI 2026/689.
• In force from 29 September 2026: the rewritten exposure offence (s.113), sexual activity with an animal or a corpse (ss.114, 115), and extradition where the person was convicted in their absence (s.246).
• In force from 26 October 2026: Respect Orders and the anti-social behaviour package (ss.1 to 6, s.3 in part).
• Not in force, no date: assault of a retail worker (s.45), spiking (s.134), possession of a weapon with intent (s.28), child criminal exploitation (s.48), cuckooing (s.65), the duty to report suspected child sex offences (s.85), online facilitation of child sexual abuse (s.77), stalking protection order changes (ss.128 to 130), warrantless entry for tracked stolen goods (s.171), and the entire sex offender notification package (ss.118 to 126).
• In force since 29 June 2026, less reported: the protest offences (ss.157 to 162), the places-of-worship restriction (s.164) and the cumulative-disruption duty (s.165), and vehicle seizure without warning (s.8).
• Victims and Courts Act 2026: ss.11 to 19 largely in force; s.1 (attendance at sentencing), ss.3 to 6 and ss.8 to 10 not in force.
• Last checked: 21 September 2026, against the instruments, not the factsheets.

Why this page exists

Between June and September 2026 we checked the commencement position on five separate occasions, for five different pieces of work. On each occasion the position differed from the published commentary:

• A commencement date in August that had not appeared in any secondary source we had seen.
• Two new offences reported everywhere as being in force which, on the face of the Act, are not.
• A notification regime described in detail by the Home Office with no commencement date given for any part of it.
• A single section commenced on its own, three days before it took effect.
• A third instrument commencing provisions on four separate dates, two of them still in the future, with a saving provision that the coverage of the extradition change did not mention.

None of that is obscure. All of it is on legislation.gov.uk. It is simply that nobody is looking, because the factsheet reads like a description of current law.

Victims and Courts Act 2026 (c. 19)

Royal Assent 29 April 2026. Commencement governed by section 18.

In force

That 13 August date did not appear in any secondary source we had seen, and we found it only by reading the regulations. The change it enables is covered in full in our guide to the unduly lenient sentence scheme.

The August instrument commenced s.7 and parts of Schedule 2 for specified purposes only, principally to enable ss.44M and 44O of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004. It is not a general commencement of s.7.

Not in force

The s.13(2)(d) point, stated conservatively

Section 18(2)(c) commences "section 13(1), (2)(a) to (c), and (3)". Paragraph (2)(d) is not in that list, and SI 2026/918 does not mention s.13 at all. On the face of the commencement provision, the 14-day extension in (2)(c) is in force and the six-month extension for qualifying victims in (2)(d) is not.

At least one secondary source states otherwise. We state the position that follows from the commencement provision as enacted. If you are relying on the six-month route, check it yourself before you do.

Crime and Policing Act 2026 (c. 20)

Royal Assent 29 April 2026. Commencement governed by section 255.

The Crime and Policing Act 2026 runs to 257 sections in 17 Parts: anti-social behaviour; offensive weapons, including the remote sale of knives and a new duty to report bulk sales; retail crime; the criminal exploitation of children and young people, and of others; sexual offences and offenders, including the intimate image provisions and the notification changes; stalking; other protection of persons, including spiking; racial and other hostility; the prevention of theft, fraud and related property offences; public order; the powers of the police; proceeds of crime; management of offenders; the police themselves; terrorism and national security; abortion; and the miscellaneous and general Part that holds the corporate liability provision and the commencement section. It amends a long list of earlier Acts, so its effect on any one person is a question of which sections are in force, not of the Act as a whole. The government presents it as part of its Safer Streets Mission, with stated aims of halving knife crime and violence against women and girls within a decade, rebuilding public confidence in policing, and giving the police and local authorities the powers to deal with anti-social behaviour. Those are aims. Which of the powers exist today is the question below.

The four commencement routes, and what each covers

SI 2026/960: the third instrument, and the first with dates still to come

Made on 2 September 2026, it commences provisions on four separate dates. Two have not yet arrived.

Three points that a factsheet reading would miss. The 21 September commencement of s.50 is not a commencement of the child criminal exploitation prevention order: it commences the section only so far as necessary to give the word "defendant" a meaning, so that rules of court can be made. Section 3 is commenced only as to subsections (1) to (4), not in full. The third: regulation 6 is a saving provision for extradition. The amendments s.246 makes to ss.20 and 85 of the Extradition Act 2003 do not apply where the extradition hearing arises from an arrest made before 29 September 2026. A person arrested on 28 September is dealt with under the old provisions.

What the 29 September 2026 exposure change means in practice is covered in a separate guide, published on 25 September 2026.

A fuller account of which police powers under this Act are usable today, and which are not, is in our guide to the powers now in force and the ones that are not. The corporate liability provisions are covered separately in corporate criminal liability under the new Act.

The measures the coverage talks about, and whether each is in force

The AI answers and the news reporting on this Act describe the same dozen measures, drawn from the government's factsheets, and describe every one of them as law. Checked individually on 21 September 2026 against each section's own commencement annotation on legislation.gov.uk:

Of the new criminal offences in that list, the protest offences, the begging offence and the intimate image offences are in force. The retail worker offence, the spiking offence, the weapon-with-intent offence, the mandatory reporting duty, the online facilitation offence and both exploitation offences are not. A person cannot be charged today with an offence that does not yet exist, and a person arrested for something the factsheet describes is entitled to ask under which section.

In force: section 250, corporate criminal liability across all offences

Of everything that has commenced, section 250 is the change most likely to reach the directors, senior management and regulated professionals we act for, and it attracted the least coverage. In force since 29 June 2026 under s.255(3)(k), it makes a body corporate or partnership criminally liable where a senior manager, acting within the actual or apparent scope of their authority, commits a criminal offence. Senior managers are those who play a significant role in the management of the whole or a substantial part of the organisation's activities, which reaches well below the board. It is a new test for attributing criminal conduct to an organisation, with a lower threshold than the one it replaces.

For decades the barrier to convicting a company was the identification doctrine: the prosecution had to prove that a directing mind of the organisation was personally culpable. The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 began dismantling that for economic crime, and added the failure to prevent fraud offence to the existing failure to prevent bribery offence in the Bribery Act 2010 and the failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion offences in the Criminal Finances Act 2017. Section 250 is no longer confined to economic crime. It applies across criminal offences generally, and unlike those failure to prevent offences, it carries no statutory defence of reasonable procedures. The criminal exposure of an organisation now follows its senior managers wherever they act. The full account is in our guide to corporate criminal liability under the new Act.

Not in force: the two new exploitation offences

Both are widely reported as being law. On the commencement position they are not.

SI 2026/960 commences part of the machinery that sits around the s.48 offence (the prevention order rule-making powers, from 21 September) without commencing the offence itself. That is the pattern to expect: the machinery first, the offence later, on a date not yet set.

What this means in practice for a case being built today is set out in possession with intent to supply, and what county lines prosecutions are actually built on.

Not in force: the entire Part 2 SOA 2003 notification package

Sections 118 to 126 amend Part 2 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. None of them is in force. None is commenced by s.255(2), s.255(3), SI 2026/689, SI 2026/939 or SI 2026/960. The third instrument commences three sexual offence provisions on 29 September (ss.113 to 115) and leaves the whole of the notification package untouched.

The orders that sit alongside the notification regime are covered separately: sexual risk orders, which can be made without any conviction, and sexual harm prevention orders, which follow one.

A person subject to notification requirements today, one of the people the press calls registered sex offenders, is subject to the unamended Part 2 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. The Home Office factsheet describes all nine changes and gives no commencement date for any of them, which is why the factsheet cannot be relied on for this.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Crime and Policing Act 2026 in force?

Partly. It received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026 and, under section 255, most of it comes into force on dates set by regulations. Three commencement instruments have been made: SI 2026/689 (29 June), SI 2026/939 (1 September) and SI 2026/960 (21 September, 29 September, 26 October and 29 October). The majority of the headline measures, including the retail worker, spiking and exploitation offences, have no commencement date.

Is the Crime and Policing Act 2026 live?

The Act is law; most of its provisions are not yet in effect. "Live" is the wrong test. The right question for any section is whether a commencement instrument has brought it into force, and the table above answers that section by section as at 21 September 2026.

What are the new Respect Orders, and when do they start?

A Respect Order under section 1 is a civil order against an adult for anti-social behaviour, replacing the civil injunction route for adults, with breach a criminal offence. Sections 1 to 6 (section 3 in part) and Schedules 1 to 3 come into force on 26 October 2026 under regulation 4 of SI 2026/960. They are not in force before that date.

What are the new powers of entry in the Crime and Policing Act 2026?

The widely reported power to enter premises without a warrant to search for electronically tracked stolen goods is section 171. As at 21 September 2026 it is not in force and no date has been appointed. Which police powers under the Act are usable today is set out in our separate guide to the powers now in force and the ones that are not.

Is section 250, corporate criminal liability, in force?

Yes, since 29 June 2026 under section 255(3)(k). It attributes criminal liability to a body corporate or partnership where a senior manager, acting within the actual or apparent scope of their authority, commits an offence, across criminal offences generally rather than economic crime alone, with no reasonable procedures defence. It is covered in our guide to corporate criminal liability under the new Act.

Which new criminal offences in the Crime and Policing Act 2026 can I be charged with today?

As at 21 September 2026: the protest offences in ss.157 to 162 (concealing identity, pyrotechnics, climbing on memorials, protests outside a public office-holder's home), the begging-for-gain offence (s.12) and the intimate image offences in ss.98 to 101 (s.98 for specified purposes), plus the s.250 route to corporate liability. From 29 September, the rewritten exposure offence. The retail worker offence, the spiking offence, the weapon-with-intent offence, child criminal exploitation and cuckooing have no commencement date. Conduct before an offence commences cannot be charged under it.

Method

1. The Act as enacted on legislation.gov.uk, including its own commencement section, read in full.
2. Every commencement instrument made under it, read in full, not summarised.
3. The section-by-section commencement notes on legislation.gov.uk, checked individually rather than inferred from the instrument list.
4. Departmental factsheets, press releases and secondary commentary are not used as sources for commencement. They are what this page exists to check.

Where a position has not been verified to that standard, it is marked as not yet checked. It is not filled in from a secondary source.

Not yet checked

• Sentencing Act 2026. Commenced in stages. The suspended sentence provisions have been examined for separate work, and are covered in the suspended sentence change and what it means in practice; the full commencement position has not been mapped to the standard above and is therefore not stated here.

Revision log

Where a commencement position affects a live investigation, it is usually decided long before any charge. That is the stage our pre-charge representation practice exists for.

This page is a working reference maintained by Lex Vindico Group. Commencement positions change, sometimes at short notice and sometimes with days of warning. The date at the top is the date it was last checked against primary sources. If you are acting on any of it, check the current position yourself.

Lex Vindico Group is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. This is general legal information, not legal advice on any specific case. For advice on your circumstances, contact our team directly.