Last updated: 9 June 2026
Companies House identity verification became a legal requirement on 18 November 2025 under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA). Every UK company director, person with significant control (PSC) and member of a limited liability partnership must now verify their identity — either directly through GOV.UK One Login or via an Authorised Corporate Service Provider. If you are still putting it off in mid-2026, you are running out of road: existing directors must complete verification by the date of their next annual confirmation statement, and the 12-month transition window closes in November 2026.
What Companies House identity verification actually is
Identity verification (IDV) is a one-off check that links a real person to the roles they hold at Companies House. Once verified, the individual receives a verified-status account and a unique 11-character personal code that must be quoted on certain filings — incorporation, director appointments, PSC notifications and confirmation statements (Companies House guidance, GOV.UK).
The policy goal is straightforward: ECCTA was designed to clean up a register that had become an open door for fraud, money laundering and “phoenix” companies set up in fake names. Verifying the people behind every UK company makes the register more reliable for banks, suppliers, investors and regulators. The reform involves checking the identity of more than seven million individuals — the largest change to UK company law in over 150 years (GOV.UK ECCTA outline transition plan).
Currently, verification applies only to individuals. Corporate directors, corporate PSCs and corporate members of LLPs will be brought in later, with details still to be confirmed. Limited partnerships and overseas-only company directors are also being phased in on separate timelines.
Who must verify and by when
The rules apply to four overlapping groups, each with a different deadline:
- New directors and PSCs (from 18 November 2025): Verification must be complete _before_ incorporation or appointment. No personal code, no appointment.
- New PSCs notified after 18 November 2025: Must verify within 14 days of being notified to Companies House.
- Existing directors: Must verify by the date of the company’s next annual confirmation statement filed after 18 November 2025 — meaning the practical deadline for the vast majority of UK directors falls between November 2025 and November 2026.
- Existing PSCs who are also directors: Verify within 14 days of the next confirmation statement after 18 November 2025.
- Existing PSCs who are not directors: Verify within 14 days of the first day of their birth month following the Base Date. So if their date of birth is 23 February, the deadline is 14 days from 1 February of the relevant year.
- LLP members: Same regime as directors — verification by the next confirmation statement.
If your confirmation statement was due in, say, March 2026 and you have not verified, you are already non-compliant. Most company secretaries we work with are now treating June–September 2026 as a hard internal deadline so that the autumn 2026 confirmation statement filings are uneventful.
How to verify your identity
There are two routes, and the right one depends on whether you already use GOV.UK services regularly and whether you hold UK biometric ID.
Route 1: Direct with Companies House via GOV.UK One Login
This is the free, do-it-yourself option. You will need:
- A GOV.UK One Login account
- A biometric identity document (UK biometric passport, UK biometric residence card, UK photocard driving licence, or an overseas biometric passport)
- A smartphone with a working camera to capture a live selfie and scan the document chip
- A valid email address and a current residential address
The process takes most directors 10–20 minutes. Once verified, you receive a personal code by email. Save it — you will need it on every relevant filing for the rest of your director career.
Route 2: Through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP)
ACSPs are agents — typically accountants, solicitors or company secretarial firms — that have registered with Companies House and are supervised by a UK Anti-Money Laundering supervisory body (List of Authorised Corporate Service Providers, GOV.UK). They can verify your identity on your behalf and submit the result to Companies House.
Use an ACSP if:
- You do not hold UK biometric ID and are not resident in the UK
- You manage multiple directorships and want a single professional to handle the paperwork
- Your existing accountant or company secretary is already an ACSP and includes IDV in their service
ACSPs typically charge between £50 and £150 per director for one-off IDV, with discounts for batches.
What changes from spring 2026 onwards
The 18 November 2025 Base Date was the beginning, not the end. From spring 2026 — and then in stages through 2026 and 2027 — Companies House is rolling out further restrictions that will tighten who can interact with the register at all.
From spring 2026, the population of people who can file documents at Companies House on behalf of a company narrows sharply. Filings must come from a verified officer or employee of that company, or from an ACSP (or its verified officers or employees). Casual document filers, unverified intermediaries and “uncle-who-does-the-books” arrangements will be locked out (Reed Smith, IDV requirements coming into force).
By no earlier than November 2026, identity verification will become a compulsory part of filing _any_ document at Companies House — not just board appointments and confirmation statements. By the end of 2026, the registrar is expected to start compliance activity against directors and PSCs who have failed to verify, including rejecting filings and cross-referencing data with other government and private databases.
Three other 2026-27 changes are worth flagging now, because they reshape what UK board reporting looks like:
- Mandatory software-only filing for all accounts. Paper and PDF web-forms for statutory accounts are being phased out.
- The “abridged accounts” option for small companies is being removed.
- All companies, including the smallest, will be required to file profit and loss accounts on the public register (SmartSearch ECCTA briefing).
If your finance team is still running statutory accounts off a spreadsheet and a free filing portal, that approach will not survive the next 12 months.
The penalties for getting it wrong
Failure to verify is a criminal offence. The director, the PSC and the company itself can each be prosecuted. Sanctions include unlimited fines, civil penalties and — for serious or repeated breaches — director disqualification and imprisonment (DLA Piper, ECCTA identity verification briefing).
The more immediate operational risk is rejection of filings. From spring 2026, Companies House can reject a confirmation statement, accounts filing or appointment that does not carry a verified personal code. A rejected confirmation statement means the company is technically in default — which can trigger covenant breaches on commercial loans, invalidate insurance, block sale processes and (in serious cases) lead to compulsory strike-off.
For mid-market boards, the most common failure pattern in 2026 has been:
- A director assumed someone else had handled it
- The company secretary assumed the directors had handled it themselves
- The annual confirmation statement is filed without personal codes and rejected
- The board is then scrambling to verify multiple directors against a deadline
A 30-minute board agenda item, plus one delegated owner with a register, prevents all of this.
What good IDV governance looks like in 2026
Treat identity verification as a recurring governance discipline, not a one-off task. The boards that are handling it well share four habits:
- Single owner. One named individual (usually the company secretary, or for SMEs, the finance lead) is accountable for the IDV register. They track which directors and PSCs are verified, when, and where the personal codes are stored.
- Codes treated as sensitive data. Personal codes are stored in the same way as director utility bills or passport scans — in an encrypted document store, not in a shared spreadsheet or email thread.
- Onboarding and offboarding hooks. Director appointments cannot complete until verification is confirmed. Resignation processes flag whether a code needs to be retired from active filings.
- Annual review at board level. The board reviews IDV status alongside the confirmation statement calendar, ahead of every filing.
For SMEs and owner-managed businesses without a dedicated company secretary, this is often where a fractional governance lead, finance director or operations director earns their fee — they bring the discipline that prevents the rejected-filing scramble.
How a fractional director helps you stay compliant
Most UK SMEs do not have a full-time company secretary or general counsel. A part-time finance director, IT director or COO with mid-market experience can absorb the IDV workstream into existing governance routines without adding headcount. They typically:
- Audit the current state of the register: who is verified, who is not, what the deadlines are
- Set up an ACSP relationship (often through the company’s existing accountant or solicitor)
- Build a one-page IDV tracker that lives alongside the confirmation statement calendar
- Brief the board on the spring-2026 filing restrictions and the further 2027 changes
- Co-ordinate the data flows between Companies House, HR, payroll and the corporate secretarial function
If you would like that taken off your plate, our fractional finance directors and fractional COOs routinely run this kind of compliance modernisation alongside their broader remit.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Is Companies House identity verification mandatory in 2026?
A: Yes. Verification became compulsory on 18 November 2025 for all new directors, PSCs and LLP members from that date. Existing individuals must verify by the date of their company’s next confirmation statement, with the 12-month transition window closing in November 2026.
Q: How long does Companies House identity verification take?
A: Most directors complete the GOV.UK One Login route in 10 to 20 minutes if they have a UK biometric passport or photocard driving licence to hand. Using an ACSP can take longer in elapsed time (because of scheduling) but requires less effort from the director.
Q: What is a Companies House personal code?
A: It is the unique 11-character identifier issued to every individual once they pass verification. It must be quoted on incorporation forms, director appointments, PSC notifications and confirmation statements so Companies House can link the filing to a verified person.
Q: What happens if a director does not verify their identity?
A: From spring 2026, filings without a personal code can be rejected. Non-verification is a criminal offence under ECCTA and can result in unlimited fines, civil penalties, director disqualification and — in serious cases — imprisonment. The company itself can also be prosecuted.
Q: Can someone else verify a director’s identity for them?
A: Yes, but only an Authorised Corporate Service Provider — typically an accountant or solicitor supervised by a UK anti-money laundering body — can do so on the director’s behalf. They will still need biometric ID and personal details from the director.
Ready to get your IDV and confirmation statement under control?
Leadership Services places experienced fractional directors into UK SMEs within a week, from £1,795 per month, with no long-term tie-ins. If you would like an outside governance lead to audit your IDV status, set up the ACSP relationship and own the compliance calendar, book a free 30-minute consultation and we will introduce you to the right director.
