Image copyright PA Image caption The Electoral Commission shows that Sinn Féin earned £1,009,000 last year.

Sinn Féin was the highest earning political party in Northern Ireland in 2017, receiving more than £1m.

The Electoral Commission published details of the 2017 financial accounts of political parties in Northern Ireland on Wednesday.

The data shows that Sinn Féin earned almost twice as much as other political parties.

This included the DUP who had an annual income of £510,000.

The Ulster Unionist Party earned £458,000 in the same year and Alliance had a 2017 income of £360,000.

The SDLP declared an income of £236,977.

Analysis: Enda McClafferty, BBC News NI political correspondent

It was also going to be a tough year for the party number crunchers.

Two unscheduled elections in 2017 - Assembly and Westminster - put a heavy strain on bank balances.

Not least for the SDLP and Ulster Unionists both losing MP's and with them key Westminster funding.

But Sinn Féin's money tree continued to deliver with the party bringing in almost as much as the previous year and more than the DUP and UUP combined

At first glance the DUP shipped a heavy drop in income - but that's because of the £435,000 EU Referendum donation which appeared on the party balance sheet in 2016.

Image caption The Electoral Commission published the details of the financial accounts on Wednesday.

Sinn Féin's accounts show its income included £437,358 in donations and £77,785 through fundraising.

It also reveals that Sinn Fein was the highest spending political party in Northern Ireland in 2017.

The party had an annual expenditure of £1,139,000, which is over £130,000 more than their income of the same year.

This is more than double the amount spent by the DUP in 2017, who had an expenditure of £461,000.

Northern Ireland's four biggest political parties, in terms of their finances, were Sinn Fein, DUP, UUP and Alliance

Collectively they spent over £2.5m in the past year.

That was almost £839,000 down on their spending for 2016.