The trio have been charged with engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service between 14 August 2024 and 16 February 2025, following an investigation by counter-terror police.
The Metropolitan Police said the three men are Mostafa Sepahvand, 39, Farhad Javadi Manesh, 44, and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 55.
The foreign state to which the charges relate is Iran, police said.
All three men will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Saturday, the force added.
Sepahvand, of St John’s Wood, London, has been charged with “surveillance, reconnaissance and open-source research” with the intention of “committing serious violence against a person in the UK”, according to a police statement on Saturday morning.
Manesh, of Kensal Rise, London, and Noori of Ealing, London, have been charged with the same offence but with the intention that the violence would be “committed by others”.
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Counter Terrorism Command commander Dominic Murphy described the charges as “extremely serious”.
“Since the men were arrested two weeks ago, detectives have been working around the clock and we have worked closely with colleagues in the Crown Prosecution Service to reach this point,” he said in a statement.
“Now that these men have been charged I would urge people not to speculate about this case, so that the criminal justice process can run its course.”
A fourth Iranian national aged 31 who was arrested shortly after the three who have been charged was released with no further action on Thursday.
In a separate unrelated probe, counter-terror officers arrested a further five Iranian men, aged between 29 and 46, during raids across various locations in Greater Manchester, London, and Swindon earlier this month.
Last October, MI5 director general Ken McCallum said the UK intelligence agency had responded to 20 “potentially lethal” Iran-backed plots since 2022, warning of the risk of an “increase or broadening of Iranian state aggression in the UK”.
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