The FCA COLL sourcebook — the UK authorised-fund product rulebook
COLL is the FCA Handbook sourcebook that sets the product and operating rules for a UK authorised fund — a UCITS scheme, a non-UCITS retail scheme (NURS) or a qualified investor scheme (QIS). It is where the fund-level rules live: how the fund is constituted, what it may invest in and how much it may borrow, how units are dealt and priced, the duties of the authorised fund manager and the depositary, and how a fund is wound up. If FUND is the UK's rulebook for the manager of an alternative fund, COLL is the rulebook for the authorised product the retail investor actually buys. Its most-consulted corner is COLL 5, the investment and borrowing powers — the eligible-assets, spread and derivative limits that decide what a UK retail fund can and cannot hold.
Scope and where it sits
COLL applies to authorised funds — funds the FCA has authorised for sale in the UK — and to the people who run them: the authorised fund manager (AFM) and the depositary (the independent body that safeguards the assets and oversees the manager). It covers three product types along a retail-to-professional spectrum: UCITS schemes (the most heavily rule-bound, fully retail), non-UCITS retail schemes (NURS — retail funds with wider investment freedom), and qualified investor schemes (QIS — for sophisticated and institutional investors, in COLL 8). COLL 1.2 sets out these types. COLL is the product rulebook; the parallel manager rules for alternative funds sit in FUND, and the two are deliberately split. Long-term asset funds have their own chapter, covered on the LTAF page (COLL 15). Post-Brexit, COLL is where the UK's onshored UCITS product requirements now live and are edited independently of the EU.
Key provisions
| Area (COLL chapter) | What it covers | The practical point |
|---|---|---|
| Constitution (COLL 3) | The instrument constituting the fund and the rules on unit classes. | The instrument is the fund's constitution — unit-class features (hedged classes, charging structures) must be authorised here before they can be offered. |
| Investor relations & disclosure (COLL 4) | The prospectus, key investor information, reports and accounts, unitholder meetings and pre-sale notifications. | The prospectus and KIID/KID are the conduct file — if they under-state fees, risk or liquidity, that is what the FCA reads back after a complaint. |
| Investment & borrowing powers (COLL 5) | Eligible assets, the spread and concentration limits, derivative exposure and cover, and borrowing limits — the core UCITS-scheme and NURS investment rules. | This is the section that decides whether a strategy is even possible in a UK retail wrapper. The UCITS 5/10/40 spread rule and the global-exposure limit on derivatives are the usual binding constraints. |
| Operating duties (COLL 6) | Dealing (issue/cancellation and sale/redemption of units), valuation and pricing, the powers and duties of the AFM and the depositary, the register, and income allocation. | The biggest chapter. Pricing and dealing errors here are the routine operational-loss events — the single-pricing and dilution rules are where NAV disputes start. |
| Suspension & winding up (COLL 7) | Suspension of dealings, winding up, schemes of arrangement, side-pocket classes, and non-viable schemes/sub-funds. | The suspension and side-pocket rules are the illiquidity playbook — know the mechanics before a gating event, not during one. |
| Qualified investor schemes (COLL 8) | The lighter regime for QIS: eligible investors, constitution, wider investment and borrowing powers, and operating duties. | QIS trade retail protections for investment freedom — the eligibility gate on who can invest is the control that keeps it out of the retail market. |
| Master-feeder & feeder NURS (COLL 11, COLL 13) | UCITS master-feeder arrangements (COLL 11) and the operational requirements for feeder NURS (COLL 13). | Feeder structures carry extra information-exchange and coordination duties between the two funds — build the master-feeder reporting before launch. |
| Charity authorised investment funds (COLL 14) | The CAIF regime — Charity Commission registration, the advisory committee and income rules. | A niche but real wrapper for charity money — the dual FCA/Charity-Commission touchpoint is the operational quirk. |
Marketing an overseas fund into the UK — recognised schemes
COLL 9 governs recognised schemes — overseas funds allowed to be marketed to UK retail investors. Two routes run in parallel: the older individual recognition under section 272 of FSMA (a fund-by-fund application), and the newer Overseas Funds Regime (OFR), under which funds from an equivalence-assessed country are recognised on a lighter, gateway basis. COLL 9 also sets the UK facilities a recognised scheme must maintain for investors. For an alternative (non-retail) fund the route is instead the National Private Placement Regime in FUND 10.5 — recognition under COLL 9 is the retail door, NPPR the professional one.
What it works with
COLL is the product-and-operating twin of the manager rulebook in FUND: an authorised retail fund is governed by COLL, while an alternative fund's manager is governed by FUND, and FUND 1.1 draws the line between them. COLL 5's investment rules are the UK's onshored version of the UCITS Directive product limits — read the two together to see where the UK has since diverged. Long-term asset funds sit in COLL 15 (its own page). When choosing a wrapper for UK retail distribution, weigh a COLL-authorised UCITS/NURS against the alternatives in the domicile comparison.
The gotcha: COLL and FUND are not interchangeable. COLL governs the authorised product (what a retail investor buys and how it operates); FUND governs the AIFM (the manager of an alternative fund). Reaching for COLL rules to run an alternative strategy — or FUND rules to launch a retail fund — is the classic category error. And "it's a UCITS, so EU and UK rules match" no longer holds: COLL is now independently amended, so check COLL 5's current limits against the live handbook rather than assuming they still mirror the EU UCITS Directive.
To verify
- COLL 5 current investment limits — confirm the live eligible-asset, spread (5/10/40), concentration and derivative-cover limits for UCITS schemes and NURS against COLL 5 before relying on them for a portfolio design; these are the provisions the UK is most likely to have edited post-Brexit.
- OFR recognition status — confirm whether a given overseas fund's country/scheme is within the Overseas Funds Regime or still needs individual section 272 recognition, from the current COLL 9 and the FCA's OFR gateway lists.
- COLL 12 and 16 — the management-company passport chapter (COLL 12) and COLL 16 render no live provisions in the current handbook (deleted/reserved post-Brexit); confirm nothing has been re-introduced before treating either as empty.