Companies House identity verification
Am I affected?
Every director and every person with significant control of a UK company must verify their identity with Companies House – existing ones by the company's next confirmation statement, and the last of those fall due by 18 November 2026. Type your company and see who must verify, who already has, and the date each person has to do it by. Free, from the public register, nothing to sign up for.
What the rules say
- Who has to verify their identity with Companies House?
- Every director of a UK company, every LLP member and every individual person with significant control (PSC). New appointments verify before they are appointed; existing directors verify when the company files its next confirmation statement due on or after 18 November 2025; an existing PSC who is also a director gives their code for the PSC role within 14 days of the company's confirmation statement date; an existing PSC who is not a director verifies within the first 14 days of their birth month. A person verifies once, then gives their personal code for each role they hold – with the confirmation statement for a directorship, and through Companies House's PSC service for a PSC role.
- What is the deadline for existing directors?
- The company's next confirmation statement due on or after 18 November 2025. The statement cannot be filed until every director has verified, so the confirmation statement due date is the deadline. The transition year ends on 18 November 2026.
- Can a director living abroad use GOV.UK One Login?
- Sometimes. The One Login app needs a passport with a chip, a phone that can read it and a face match that passes. Where that is not possible – an older passport, no NFC phone, a failed match, a name that has changed – the other free routes (security questions drawn from a UK credit file, or the Post Office) need a UK address history that people who have lived abroad for years no longer have. The other route the law allows is an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP), which checks the person's documents directly and tells Companies House.
- How does this checker know who has verified?
- The Companies House public register now records, for each appointment, whether the identity verification statement has been supplied and the date Companies House wants it by. The checker reads the register live and shows those entries.
- What happens if someone does not verify in time?
- Companies House says the person may be committing an offence and may face prosecution, a fine through the courts or a financial penalty, and that a note will be published against their name on the public register. The company cannot file its confirmation statement until its directors have verified.
Accountants: run your whole client book in one go and get the report as a spreadsheet.