Limited Companies
Year-end accounts: every deadline your limited company must hit
A limited company has four recurring deadlines, and the sequencing is stranger than most new directors expect: you pay your corporation tax before the return for it is due. Here's the full calendar in plain English, and how to make it a non-event.
The four deadlines
Annual accounts to Companies House — due nine months after your year-end (your "accounting reference date"). Your very first set is different: due 21 months after incorporation. Corporation tax payment to HMRC — due nine months and one day after the end of the accounting period. The CT600 corporation tax return — due twelve months after the period ends. Yes: the money is due three months before the return. In practice everyone prepares the accounts and computation together, so the tax figure exists in time to pay it. The confirmation statement — at least once every twelve months, confirming your registered details. Small, cheap, and legally required.
What "accounts" actually means
For most small companies: a balance sheet, notes, and (filed privately with HMRC alongside the CT600) a profit and loss. Small and micro companies can file reduced accounts publicly — though what appears on the public record is changing over the coming years as Companies House reform beds in, which is worth a conversation if privacy matters to you.
The cost of missing them
Companies House penalties are automatic, not discretionary: £150 up to one month late, rising through £375 and £750 to £1,500 beyond six months — and doubled if you're late two years in a row. Persistent failure can lead to the company being struck off. HMRC separately charges penalties and interest on late returns and late tax. None of it is negotiable, which is why "we'll sort it near the deadline" is the most expensive sentence in company admin.
Making it a non-event
The trick isn't heroics in month nine — it's tidy books in months one to twelve. With bookkeeping on Xero and receipts captured through DEXT, year-end stops being an excavation: the accounts get prepared early, the corporation tax figure is a forecast you've seen coming, and you spend the deadline months deciding what to do about the number (pensions, timing, investment) rather than discovering it. That's how we run year-ends for companies across Leeds and Garforth — accounts drafted well before the deadline, tax planned rather than announced. If your last year-end was a scramble, the fix starts now, not next March.
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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