IPSO vs IMPRESS: Which Press Regulator Covers Which Publisher?

Two regulators, one post-Leveson settlement

When the Press Complaints Commission closed in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal and the Leveson Inquiry, the self-regulation of the UK press was rebuilt around two separate bodies. The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) launched in 2014 and took on the bulk of the industry. IMPRESSlaunched in 2016 as a smaller, differently constituted alternative. Both are voluntary: no law compels a publisher to join either, and some of the country's most prominent titles have joined neither.

The essential distinction is not size but recognition. IMPRESS sought and obtained approval under the Royal Charter; IPSO did not. Everything else — which publishers join, what codes apply, how complaints are handled — flows from that structural choice. This page is about the choice of regulator and how the system fits together, rather than the detail of any single code. For the content of the Editors' Code itself, see our Editors' Code guide.

The Royal Charter and the Press Recognition Panel

Lord Justice Leveson's 2012 report recommended a system of voluntary self-regulation that would be independently audited against a set of criteria, without direct government control of the press. The mechanism chosen was a Royal Charter on self-regulation of the press, granted in 2013, which established the Press Recognition Panel (PRP)as an independent body to assess whether a press regulator meets the recognition criteria — on board independence, funding, complaints handling, arbitration and remedies.

Recognition is therefore a badge about a regulator's architecture, awarded by the PRP, not a government seal on individual articles. A recognised regulator has been checked against the Charter criteria; an unrecognised one has not been through that process. Crucially, recognition is optional: a regulator can choose to operate entirely outside the Charter scheme, which is exactly what IPSO has done.

IPSO: the large, unrecognised regulator

IPSO regulates most of the national newspapers and a large majority of the regional and local press, along with many magazines and their websites. It enforces the Editors' Code of Practice, which is written and maintained by the Editors' Code of Practice Committee and covers accuracy, privacy, harassment, reporting of suicide, children and similar matters. IPSO handles complaints, can require the publication of corrections and adjudications, and operates a standards-investigation power.

IPSO has deliberately not applied to the Press Recognition Panel and is therefore not recognised under the Royal Charter. Its supporters argue it is independent, effective and backed by the industry; critics say that declining recognition leaves a gap in the Leveson design. Either way, the practical reality in 2026 is that the great bulk of mainstream UK newspaper journalism is regulated by a body that sits outside the Charter scheme.

IMPRESS: the recognised regulator for smaller publishers

IMPRESS is the only regulator approved by the Press Recognition Panel under the Royal Charter. It enforces its own IMPRESS Standards Code and regulates a very different slice of the industry: mostly small, independent, hyperlocal, community and digital-native publishers, numbering in the hundreds of titles. Its recognised status means its structure, funding and remedies have been assessed against the Charter criteria, and it is required to run a low-cost arbitration scheme as part of that model.

The trade-off is reach. Because none of the big national publishers have joined IMPRESS, the only regulator that carries the Charter's recognition covers a small share of total UK readership. This mismatch — recognition concentrated in the smallest publishers, the largest publishers outside the recognised system — is the defining feature of the current settlement.

Section 40: the incentive that never took effect

The Leveson design assumed publishers would need a reason to join a recognised regulator. That reason was meant to be section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, a costs-shifting provision. In outline, a publisher that was a member of a recognised regulator offering arbitration would generally be protected from paying costs in relevant defamation and privacy claims, even if it lost, while a publisher outside such a regulator could be ordered to pay both sides' costs even if it won. The aim was to make membership of a recognised regulator the rational, cheaper choice.

It did not happen. Section 40 was intensely controversial — the press argued it penalised publishers for declining state-sanctioned recognition — and it was never fully commenced. The costs regime it described therefore never came into force. The provision was subsequently repealed by the Data Protection Act 2018, removing it from the statute book altogether.

The consequence matters for understanding today's map. Without a live costs incentive, there was little practical pressure on major publishers to seek recognition. The Charter and the PRP remain, but the mechanism that was supposed to give recognition real teeth was switched off and then deleted — which is why IPSO's unrecognised model was able to become the industry norm.

Low-cost arbitration under each regulator

Arbitration is the route through which the regulatory system connects to actual legal remedies such as damages, because the complaints process itself cannot award money. Both regulators offer low-cost arbitration schemes designed to resolve legal claims — typically defamation, privacy and related media-law disputes — far more cheaply than High Court litigation.

• ›IPSO operates an arbitration scheme for legal claims against its member publishers, administered independently. It is intended to give claimants an affordable alternative to court for defamation and privacy disputes, with capped costs and a binding outcome.
• ›IMPRESS is required, as a condition of Royal Charter recognition, to provide a low-cost arbitration scheme. Providing accessible arbitration is one of the core Leveson criteria that a recognised regulator must satisfy.

Arbitration only helps you if the publisher you are complaining about participates in the relevant scheme, and the exact scope and cost caps are set by each regulator's current scheme rules. Where a publisher self-regulates and offers no arbitration, the courts remain the only route to damages.

Complaints, remedies and the damages point

The complaints processes of the two regulators follow a broadly similar shape: a reader or affected person complains that a specific article breached the relevant code, the regulator assesses whether the complaint is within its remit and time limits, the publisher is given the chance to respond and resolve it, and if it is not resolved the regulator adjudicates. Where a breach is found, the standard remedies are a correction, a clarification, or the publication of the regulator's adjudication with due prominence.

Both regulators can, in principle, impose financial penalties for serious and systemic failings following a formal standards investigation, but any such penalty is paid to the regulator, not to the complainant. This is the single most misunderstood point about UK press regulation: it is a standards and corrections system, not a compensation system. For the mechanics of getting a correction published, see our guide on corrections and clarifications.

The publishers who belong to neither

A crucial feature of the UK system is that membership is voluntary, and several major publishers have opted out of both regulators. The Guardian, the Financial Times and the Independentare the most prominent examples; they operate their own in-house editorial complaints and standards processes instead. The Guardian, for instance, maintains an independent readers' editor who investigates complaints and issues corrections.

For a complainant this changes the route entirely: there is no external national regulator to appeal to, so you use the publisher's own published complaints procedure, and beyond that your only recourse is the courts. It also means blanket statements like “the press is regulated by IPSO” are inaccurate. Some of the most-read UK journalism is regulated only by its own publisher — a reminder that self-regulation here is genuinely voluntary. For how publishers should handle this internally, see our corrections policy guide.

How a journalist or reader chooses where to complain

• ›Identify the publisher first, not the story. A complaint follows the title, so establish which company publishes the article and whether that title is regulated by IPSO, by IMPRESS, or by neither.
• ›Check the regulator's public list of member publishers, or the masthead and website footer, which usually state the regulator. If the title self-regulates, use its own complaints page.
• ›Match your remedy to the route. If you want a correction, the regulator's complaints process is the right forum. If you want damages, you need arbitration (where the publisher participates) or the courts.
• ›Mind the deadlines. Both regulators impose time limits for bringing a complaint, so act promptly and keep the published material and its date.
• ›Remember the boundary with broadcasting. Complaints about television and radio programmes go to Ofcom under a separate statutory regime, not to IPSO or IMPRESS.

Standards codes: a high-level comparison

The two regulators enforce different codes. IPSO applies the Editors' Code of Practice; IMPRESS applies the IMPRESS Standards Code. At a high level both cover the familiar territory of accuracy, privacy, harassment, protection of children and responsible reporting, and both build in a public-interest framework so that a breach can be justified where genuine public interest outweighs the harm.

They differ in drafting, emphasis and origin. The Editors' Code is written by a committee of serving editors; the IMPRESS Code was developed through a separate consultation process and places distinct emphasis on matters such as transparency, discrimination and conflicts of interest. For a working journalist the practical point is simple: the code that governs your work is the one enforced by your publisher's regulator, so you should read that specific code rather than assuming the two are interchangeable. Our Editors' Code guide covers the IPSO code clause by clause; the right-of-reply obligations are examined in the right of reply guide.

Frequently asked questions