Verifying your identity with Companies House from Singapore: a guide for British directors

If you are a British director or person with significant control (PSC) of a UK company living in Singapore, you must verify your identity with Companies House, and you can do it from there. 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. One Login 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 and supervised for anti-money laundering, 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 has to verify, and by when

The duty covers every director and individual PSC, once, for every role. An existing director's deadline is the company's confirmation statement due date, and the statement cannot be filed until every director has verified. An existing PSC who is also a director has 14 days from that date; one who is not has the first 14 days of their birth month, in the transition year to 18 November 2026. By 30 June 2026 only 55% of directors and 42% of PSCs had verified.

Why One Login cannot always be used from Singapore

The app route needs a passport with a chip, an NFC phone to read it and a face match that passes. Your British passport's chip reads in Tanjong Pagar as it would in Taunton. An older passport, a phone without NFC or a failed face match can stop it, and the fall-backs need a UK footprint: a credit file that is often empty after years in Singapore, or a Post Office thirteen hours' flight away. Singpass does not help. There is no manual route at Companies House and nobody there can override the check.

The other route: an ACSP

Vaulex Group Ltd is an ACSP. From Singapore: upload your British passport and a proof of address at https://my.vaulex.co.uk/verify, complete the biometric checks on your phone, and an AML-qualified reviewer checks everything; we tell Companies House; your personal code arrives by email from Companies House. £149.99 per person, standard, three working days from when everything is in. Fast track £349 per person: 24 hours counted on working days, from the point your biometric checks are complete and we have everything we need.

Use your passport while it is in date; one renewed abroad has a new chip, so One Login's app route may now work. If the name differs from the register, tell us.

Proof of address in Singapore: the SP bill, the bank and the tenancy

Any of these in your own name, recent and showing your residential address, will do: an SP Group utilities bill, a Singtel, StarHub or M1 bill, a bank or credit card statement from DBS, OCBC or UOB, your tenancy agreement with its IRAS stamp duty certificate, or an IRAS Notice of Assessment. A permanent resident's NRIC shows the address on the back and works too.

Two snags. The pass: an Employment Pass, S Pass or Dependant's Pass proves your right to live in Singapore but shows no address, so send it alongside a bill or a statement. The name: a document in your flatmate's or spouse's name proves where they live, not where you live; a bank statement in your own name is the quickest fix.

Give the address as the document shows it: block, street, unit number and postal code. A PO Box, a care-of address or your office is not a residential address. Tax residence is a separate matter; the proof of address is where you live.

Timing it from Singapore

Singapore does not change its clocks, so it is eight hours ahead of the UK in winter and seven in the British summer. The UK working day starts at 4pm or 5pm in Singapore, so an upload before you leave the office is on a desk in Penarth as the day begins. Working days are UK working days; Singapore holidays do not change the count. Due next week? Choose the fast track.

The letter that went to a house in the UK

Many people in Singapore keep the registered office at a relative's house in the UK, where the date can pass unopened. Since 4 March 2024 a registered office must be an "appropriate address", and a relative's house meets that only while someone there opens the mail and tells you the same day. Switch Business Pro moves it to Vaulex House in Penarth for £39.99 a month, every letter scanned the day it arrives: https://vaulex.co.uk/switch/.

If the date has passed

Companies House's letters say you may be committing an offence and may face prosecution, a fine or a financial penalty. On 16 September 2026 three directors were convicted after Insolvency Service prosecutions; "There is no option to opt out", the Insolvency Service said. Not filing a confirmation statement is itself an offence and can lead to strike-off. This is information, not legal advice; we are not solicitors or accountants.

Start when you are ready

Your personal code goes in the confirmation statement for a director, or through the PSC verification service for a PSC. If you already have one, you do not verify again.

If One Login works for you, use it. If not, start at https://my.vaulex.co.uk/verify with your British passport, an SP Group bill or statement and your phone. Check who in your company still needs to verify, free: https://guides.vaulex.co.uk/am-i-affected.