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

If you are a British director or person with significant control (PSC) of a UK company living in Switzerland, 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 Switzerland

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 Zurich as it would in York. 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 may be thin after years abroad, or a Post Office, which means a UK Post Office, not Swiss Post. 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 Switzerland: 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 when you upload.

Proof of address: the residence certificate, the permit and a bill

Everyone who moves to Switzerland registers with the commune, and its residents' office (Einwohnerkontrolle, contrôle des habitants, controllo abitanti) issues a Wohnsitzbescheinigung, attestation de résidence or certificato di domicilio on request: an official record of your name, your address and the date you took up residence. Most cantons let you order it online for a modest fee; Geneva charges CHF 25.

Your B, C or L permit proves your right to live in Switzerland, so send it alongside, but pair it with the residence certificate or a bill rather than relying on it for the address. The everyday documents also work: a bill from your electricity supplier, a Serafe invoice, a Krankenkasse premium letter, a bank statement from UBS, PostFinance or Raiffeisen, your tax assessment, or your Mietvertrag. A document in German, French or Italian is reviewed like any other.

The usual snag is the name: a Mietvertrag in your partner's name proves where they live, not where you live; the residence certificate solves it because it is in yours. Tax residence is a separate matter; the proof of address is simply where you live.

Timing it from Switzerland

Switzerland is one hour ahead of the UK all year. An upload at 10am in Zurich is on a desk in Penarth at 9am, as the UK working day starts. Working days are UK working days; cantonal 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 Switzerland 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, your residence certificate or a bill in your name, and your phone. Check who in your company still needs to verify, free: https://guides.vaulex.co.uk/am-i-affected.