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

If you are a British director or person with significant control (PSC) of a UK company living in Spain, you must verify your identity with Companies House, and you can do it without flying back. 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 has to verify, and by when

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 831 British nationals in Spain who are PSCs of active UK companies with a verification date still outstanding. Check your own company free at https://guides.vaulex.co.uk/am-i-affected.

Why One Login cannot always be used from Spain

If One Login works for you, use it. The app route needs three things at once: a passport with a chip, a phone that can read it (NFC) 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. After years in Spain your UK credit file may be thin, and the nearest Post Office is a flight away. Guidance: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/verifying-your-identity-for-companies-house.

The other route: an ACSP

An ACSP is registered with Companies House, listed on its public register of ACSPs, 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 Spain: 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, for British passport holders anywhere in the world.

Proof of address: bills in Spanish, or in your spouse's name

Two things come up: the language and the name. The language is the easier one. A document in Spanish, or in Catalan, Galician or Basque, is reviewed like any other; your name, your address and a recent date must be readable. The name is the harder one. If every bill is in your spouse's name, it proves where they live, not where you live. Find something in your own name: a bank statement, a tax letter, a tenancy agreement, a certificate from your town hall. Not sure? Ask before you upload.

Your passport: close to expiry, or renewed from Spain

We check a British passport, so start there. 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 Spain: 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.

A working-day timeline from Spain

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; Spanish public holidays do not change the count.

Mainland Spain is one hour ahead of the UK all year; the Canary Islands keep UK time. An upload at 10am in Madrid is on a desk in Penarth at 9am, as the UK working day starts; a Friday-evening upload waits until Monday. Due next week? Upload early in the week and choose the fast-track. A blurred passport photo page is the quickest way to lose a day.

The letter that went to a house in the UK

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 while the envelope sits 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 has passed

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.

Two things to do, then it is done

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 Spain, use it. If not, start at https://my.vaulex.co.uk/verify with your passport, a proof of address and your phone. The service in full: https://vaulex.co.uk/identity-verification/.