Verifying your identity through an authorised agent (ACSP): how it works, step by step

An Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP) is an agent registered with Companies House and supervised for anti-money laundering by HMRC or a professional body. Verifying your identity through one works like this: you give the ACSP your passport and a proof of address, a reviewer checks them to the Companies House standard, the ACSP keeps a record for seven years and tells Companies House that you have been verified, and Companies House emails you your 11-character personal code. You then provide that code to Companies House for each role you hold. It is the alternative to GOV.UK One Login, and it is the route for anyone One Login cannot handle – most often directors and PSCs living abroad.

What an ACSP is

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 requires every director of a UK company, every LLP member and every individual person with significant control (PSC) to verify their identity with Companies House. Companies House allows two ways to do it: through GOV.UK One Login, or through an ACSP.

An ACSP is a business that has registered with Companies House to carry out those checks. To register, it must already be supervised for anti-money laundering – by HMRC or by a professional body – so it already answers to a supervisor under the UK's anti-money laundering rules.

Vaulex Group Ltd is an ACSP (Companies House AP021384), supervised by HMRC as a Trust or Company Service Provider (XLML00000218127) and registered with the ICO (ZC087196). Its founder holds the ICA Anti-Money Laundering certificate at Merit. Anyone can check an ACSP on the Companies House public register of ACSPs before sending it a single document.

The standard the check is done to

An ACSP checks identity to the Companies House standard – the same standard Companies House applies to its own checks. The difference is who does the checking and how. One Login relies on a passport chip read by an NFC phone and an automated face match, or on security questions from a UK credit file, or on a Post Office counter. An ACSP relies on a reviewer looking at your documents and running an identity check on them.

That is why the ACSP route works for people One Login cannot always serve from abroad. An older passport without a chip, a phone without NFC, a face match that fails or a name that has changed can stop One Login, and its fall-backs need a UK footprint. A reviewer works from the documents you upload, not from a chip read or a UK credit file.

The documents you provide

Two documents, both uploaded from your phone:

1. Your passport. Vaulex verifies British passport holders, anywhere in the world.
2. A proof of address. Dated within the last three months, in your name, at the address you live at.

You upload them at my.vaulex.co.uk/verify. It is a web page, so there is no app to install. If a document is unclear you are asked for a better copy, and the review does not start until everything is in.

The check itself

A reviewer examines the documents and runs an identity check through nCino's identity verification tool. The purpose is to confirm that the document is genuine and that the details on it match the person being verified. If something does not match, you are asked about it before anything goes to Companies House.

The check is of you, not of your company. Nothing about the company's filings, accounts or shareholders is examined. One check covers every company you are involved with.

What Companies House is told

When the check is complete, the ACSP tells Companies House that it has verified your identity, and who it has verified. Companies House then issues your personal code. The ACSP does not issue the code; Companies House does.

This is also the point at which the ACSP's own record is made. Every ACSP must keep records of the checks it carries out, so a record exists of what was checked and when.

When the personal code arrives, and where it goes

Your personal code arrives by email from Companies House. It is 11 characters long. It belongs to you, not to a company, and it covers every company you are involved with now or later. Keep it somewhere you will find it again: you will need it for each role.

Through Vaulex, the standard service is three working days from when everything is in.

Having the code is step one of two. Step two is providing it to Companies House for each role – with the confirmation statement for a directorship, or through the "Provide identity verification details for a person with significant control" service for a PSC role. If you already have a personal code from an earlier verification, you do not verify again. You only provide the code.

Record-keeping

Every ACSP must keep records of its identity checks for seven years. That is a legal duty on the ACSP, not a choice. Vaulex is registered with the ICO (ZC087196) for the personal data it holds.

This is information, not legal advice. We are not solicitors or accountants.

Fast-track

The standard service is three working days from when everything is in. If your confirmation statement is due sooner than that, or a PSC window closes this week, the fast-track is 24 hours on working days. The check is the same.

Whichever service you choose, the clock starts when both documents are in and meet the requirements, so the fastest thing you can do is send a clear passport and a proof of address that is in date, in your name and at the address you live at.

Who it suits

• Directors and PSCs living abroad, for whom One Login cannot always be used.
• Anyone whose passport has no chip or whose phone has no NFC.
• Anyone whose face match or name has stopped One Login.
• Anyone with a deadline close enough that they want a person, not an app, on the other end.
• Accountants with a client book to clear. The free tool at guides.vaulex.co.uk/am-i-affected/accountants shows which clients still have people to verify and the date for each.

Vaulex's analysis of the Companies House PSC snapshot of 17 October 2026 found 10,925 outstanding PSC positions held by British nationals living abroad, 5,993 of them already past their date. The ACSP route exists for exactly those people.

Verify through Vaulex

Identity verification through Vaulex is £149.99 per person: three working days from when everything is in, or 24 hours on working days on the fast-track. Upload your British passport and proof of address from your phone at my.vaulex.co.uk/verify, and your personal code comes to you by email from Companies House.