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

If you are a British director or person with significant control (PSC) of a UK company living in South Africa, 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 must verify, and the date that applies to you

Every director, every LLP member and every individual PSC of a UK company must verify, once, for every role. Since 18 November 2025 a new director verifies before appointment and a new PSC within 14 days of registration. An existing director's deadline is the company's confirmation statement due date; the statement cannot be filed until every director has verified. An existing PSC has a 14-day window set out in a Companies House letter. The transition year ends on 18 November 2026.

Why One Login cannot always be used from South Africa

If One Login works for you, use it. The chip in a British passport reads in Cape Town as it does in Cardiff. What stops people is the fall-back: an older passport without a chip, a phone without NFC, a failed face match or a changed name sends One Login to security questions drawn from a UK credit file, or to a Post Office counter. After years in South Africa you may have neither. Guidance: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/verifying-your-identity-for-companies-house.

Verifying through an ACSP from South Africa

An ACSP checks your documents to the Companies House standard and tells Companies House, which issues your personal code. Vaulex Group Ltd is an ACSP, number AP021384. 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. £149.99 per person, three working days from when everything is in. Fast track is £349 per person: 24 hours on working days once the biometric checks are complete and we have everything we need.

Proof of address: your FICA documents

South Africa has trained everyone to keep a proof of residence to hand, and the same documents work for us: a bank statement from a South African bank, a municipal rates and taxes account, a water and electricity account, a lease agreement that names you, a cellphone contract statement or a SARS letter. Send one dated within the last three months, in your own name, showing the physical address where you live.

Two local points. Post in South Africa often goes to a PO Box or a Postnet suite, and a box number is not a residential address: the document must show the street, the unit number and the complex or estate name. And if you are also a South African citizen, your smart ID card or green barcoded ID book is a good second document, but the passport we verify is the British one.

Two passports? Use the British one

We check a British passport. If you hold both British and South African passports, upload the British one and tell us if the name on it differs from the register. Close to expiry: use it now, while it is in date. Away being renewed: wait for the new one; a photocopy is not a passport.

Timing it from South Africa

South Africa is two hours ahead of the UK in the British winter and one in the British summer, because South Africa does not change its clocks. Your working day and ours overlap almost completely: an upload before lunch in Johannesburg is looked at the same UK morning. Working days are UK working days, less UK bank holidays: Heritage Day does not pause the clock; an English bank holiday does.

The registered office back in the UK

Many people in South Africa keep the registered office at a relative's house in the UK, where Companies House letters can sit unopened past the date. Since 4 March 2024 a registered office must be an "appropriate address", one where a delivered document would come to the attention of someone acting for the company. Switch - Business Pro moves it to Vaulex House in Penarth for £39.99 a month, every letter scanned: https://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." The first convictions came on 16 September 2026, with fines of £80 to £307 plus costs. A PSC can request an extension within the window. This is information, not legal advice; we are not solicitors or accountants.

Start when you are ready

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 South Africa, use it. If not, start at https://my.vaulex.co.uk/verify this morning with your British passport, a proof of address and your phone. Check who in your company still has to verify at https://guides.vaulex.co.uk/am-i-affected.