Limited Companies
Companies House ID checks: every director now has a deadline
Since 18 November 2025, every UK company director and person with significant control has been required to verify their identity with Companies House — and if you were a director before that date, your deadline is your company's next confirmation statement. The final backstop is 18 November 2026, but for most directors the real date lands sooner. This is the biggest change to Companies House in decades, and it applies to every company, including one-person ones.
What's actually required
You verify once — online through GOV.UK One Login with photo ID, or through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider — and receive a personal code. That code becomes part of your identity at Companies House: it's needed when the company files its confirmation statement, and for director changes and new appointments. New directors can't be appointed at all without verifying first.
The deadline mechanics
Your trigger is the confirmation statement: it cannot be filed unless every director has verified. So if your statement is due in October, that's effectively your verification deadline — waiting for November 2026 isn't an option. And there's a wrinkle for owner-managers: if you're both a director and a PSC of the same company (most owner-managed companies), you provide your code twice — once via the confirmation statement, and once through the separate PSC service within 14 days after the confirmation statement date. That second step is the one people are missing.
Why not to leave it late
Verification itself usually takes minutes. The problem is what it blocks when it goes wrong at the last minute: a mismatch between your ID and the Companies House record — an old address, a wrong date of birth — turns a ten-minute task into a week of correspondence, with your filing deadline sitting there waiting. Meanwhile the company can't file, and acting as an unverified director after your deadline is an offence.
What to do this week
Check your confirmation statement date (it's on your company's Companies House page). Check the personal details held there match your ID exactly. Then verify — early costs nothing and can't be done too soon. We're walking all our company clients through this as their statements come due, including the easily-missed PSC step; if you'd like it handled rather than researched, get in touch and it's a short job.
This is general information, not advice for your circumstances. If you'd like it applied to your situation, get in touch — the first chat is free.
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