Verifying your identity with Companies House from Dubai and the UAE

If you are a British director or person with significant control (PSC) of a UK company living in Dubai or elsewhere in the UAE, you must verify your identity with Companies House, and you can do it from where you are. The free route is GOV.UK One Login: it reads the chip in a biometric passport with an NFC phone and takes a face match. It cannot always be used from abroad, because its fall-backs – security questions drawn from a UK credit file, or an in-person check at a Post Office – need a UK footprint. The other route is an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP), an agent registered with Companies House, which checks your British passport and a proof of address and tells Companies House. Either way you get one 11-character personal code that covers every company you are involved in.

Who must verify, and the date that applies to you

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 requires every director, every LLP member and every individual PSC of a UK company to verify their identity, once, for every role at every company.

• Since 18 November 2025 a new director verifies before appointment, and a new PSC within 14 days of being registered.
• An existing director's deadline is the company's confirmation statement due date, where that falls on or after 18 November 2025; the statement cannot be filed until every director has verified.
• An existing PSC who is also a director has 14 days from the confirmation statement date; one who is not has the first 14 days of their birth month, in the transition year to 18 November 2026. Companies House writes to each PSC with their window.

The last existing-director deadlines fall by 18 November 2026. Vaulex's analysis of the Companies House PSC snapshot of 17 October 2026 found 1,097 British nationals in the UAE who are PSCs of UK companies with a verification date still outstanding – the highest figure for any country outside the UK, ahead of the USA at 974 and Spain at 831. Check your own company free at https://guides.vaulex.co.uk/am-i-affected.

Why One Login cannot always be used from the UAE

If One Login works for you, use it. The app route needs a passport with a chip, a phone with NFC to read it, and a face match that passes. An older passport without a chip, a phone without NFC, a failed face match or a changed name can stop it. The fall-backs – security questions drawn from a UK credit file, or an in-person check at a Post Office – need a UK footprint: a UK address history, or a trip to the UK. After years in the UAE you may have neither. Guidance: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/verifying-your-identity-for-companies-house.

Verifying through an ACSP from Dubai

An ACSP is registered with Companies House and supervised for anti-money laundering by HMRC or a professional body. It checks your identity documents to the Companies House standard, keeps records for seven years and tells Companies House, which issues your personal code.

Vaulex Group Ltd is an ACSP (Companies House AP021384), an HMRC-supervised Trust or Company Service Provider (XLML00000218127) and ICO registered (ZC087196). From the UAE: upload your British passport and a proof of address at https://my.vaulex.co.uk/verify; a reviewer checks them; we tell Companies House; your personal code arrives by email from Companies House. £149.99 per person. We verify British passport holders anywhere in the world.

Proof of address in the UAE

Three things come up. The language: a document in Arabic, or in Arabic and English, is reviewed like any other; your name, your address and a recent date must be readable. The name: if the tenancy and the utilities are in a spouse's or a landlord's name, they prove where that person lives, not where you live; send something in your own name, such as a bank statement or a tenancy contract that names you. The box: if your mail goes to a PO box, send a document that shows where you actually live, not only the box number.

Your passport: close to expiry, or renewed while abroad

We check a British passport. Close to expiry: use it now, while it is in date; once it has expired you have nothing to photograph. Away being renewed: if the old passport has gone off with the application, wait for the new one; a photocopy is not a passport. Renewed from the UAE: it is still a British passport, with a new chip, so One Login's app route may now work; if not, upload it to us. If the name on your passport differs from the name on the register, tell us when you upload.

Timing it from the UAE

The UAE is four hours ahead of the UK in the British winter and three in the British summer, because the UAE does not change its clocks. Upload in your morning and the documents are waiting when the UK working day begins.

Standard service: three working days from the point everything is in. Fast-track: 24 hours on working days. Working days are UK working days, Monday to Friday, less UK bank holidays; your own weekend and public holidays do not change the count. If you travel often, do it on a day you are at home with the passport in your hand.

The registered office at a relative's house

Many people abroad keep the registered office at a relative's house in the UK. Companies House letters go there, and the date can pass unopened. Since 4 March 2024 a registered office must be an "appropriate address", one where a document delivered would be expected to come to the attention of a person acting for the company; a relative's house meets that only while someone there opens the mail and tells you the same day.

Switch – Business Pro moves the registered office to Vaulex House in Penarth for £39.99 a month: every letter scanned the day it arrives, your home address off the register, the AD01 and CH01 filings done by us. See https://my.vaulex.co.uk/switch.

If the date passes

Companies House's letters say: "If you do not comply, you may be committing an offence. You may face prosecution and a fine through the courts, or a financial penalty. In the future, we'll publish a note against your name on the Companies House public register." Not filing a confirmation statement is itself an offence and can lead to strike-off. A PSC can request an extension through the PSC verification service within the window. This is information, not legal advice; we are not solicitors or accountants.

Next step from Dubai

Companies House calls it two things. Verify your identity and receive your personal code. Then provide the code for each role: with the confirmation statement for a director, or through the PSC verification service (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/provide-psc-verification). If you already have a personal code, you do not verify again.

If One Login works for you from the UAE, use it. If not, start at https://my.vaulex.co.uk/verify with your British passport, a proof of address and your phone. The service in full: https://vaulex.co.uk/identity-verification/.