The Companies House letter directors keep ignoring, and the offence at the end of it

For most of the last century, becoming a company director in Britain required roughly the same proof of identity as joining a library. You supplied a name, an address and a date of birth, and nobody checked any of it. That is the reason the register accumulated directors named after cartoon characters, and the reason it was such a convenient place to hide.

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act changed it. Since 18 November 2025, identity verification at Companies House has been compulsory, and the obligation reaches every director, every LLP member and every person with significant control of a UK company — including the sole director of a dormant company that has done nothing for six years.

Most owners with an accountant will have had this handled. A meaningful number will not, because the correspondence looked like every other piece of Companies House post, and the deadline is attached to a filing rather than to a date in the calendar.

What is actually required

You verify your identity once, as an individual rather than per company. You can do it directly with Companies House using the GOV.UK One Login service, or through an authorised corporate service provider — an accountant, solicitor or formation agent registered for the purpose. Either route issues you a personal code, which is the thing that then gets quoted on filings.

Verified once, that code works for every company you are involved in. A director of four companies verifies once and uses the same code four times.

The deadlines, which are not all the same

New directors and new incorporations. Since 18 November 2025, verification has to be in place at the point of appointment or incorporation. There is no grace period; the filing is the deadline.

Existing directors and LLP members. Your code must be provided with the first confirmation statement your company files after 18 November 2025. This is the deadline people miss, because it moves with your company's own filing date rather than falling on a fixed national date. If your confirmation statement is due in October, that is your deadline, and nobody will remind you in September.

People with significant control who are also directors. Within 14 days of that first confirmation statement.

People with significant control who are not directors. A different rule again: a 14-day window starting on the first day of your birth month. A PSC born in March verifies in the first fortnight of March. It is an unusual mechanism, designed to spread several million verifications across the year rather than pile them onto one date, and it is easy to miss entirely if you are not a director and therefore never see the company's filing correspondence.

The obligation is personal, not corporate. Your accountant can file the paperwork; they cannot be verified on your behalf.

The consequence, which is not a penalty notice

This is where it differs from the rest of Companies House compliance. Acting as a director without having verified is a criminal offence punishable by a fine, for the individual. The company and its officers can also commit an offence by permitting an unverified person to act as a director.

Notably, the acts themselves remain valid. Contracts signed by an unverified director are not void, and their appointment is not automatically undone — Parliament sensibly avoided creating a mechanism by which a company could invalidate its own decisions retrospectively. The exposure is personal and criminal rather than commercial, which is exactly the sort of exposure directors tend to discover late.

Put it alongside the rest of the annual obligations

It is worth using this as the prompt to check the whole set, because directors' filing duties are personal and the penalties are automatic.

The confirmation statement is due at least once every twelve months and costs £50 to file online, or £110 on paper. There is no financial late-filing penalty for it, but failing to file is a criminal offence and persistent failure gets the company struck off — taking its bank account and any assets with it.

Accounts are the expensive one. Late filing penalties for a private company are automatic and escalate with delay: £150 for up to a month late, rising to £1,500 for more than six months, and doubling if you file late two years running. Nobody at Companies House has discretion to waive them for being busy.

And a further change is coming that will affect small companies more than any of this: the Act removes the option to file abridged or filleted accounts, so small and micro-entity companies will have to file a profit and loss account. Turnover that has been private since the company was formed becomes visible to competitors, customers and staff. Whatever one thinks of the transparency argument, it is a commercial event, and it deserves more attention than it is getting.

The ten minutes it takes

Verify now rather than at the deadline. Direct verification through GOV.UK One Login takes about ten minutes with a passport or driving licence, and doing it through your accountant costs a modest fee if they are an authorised provider. Record the personal code somewhere durable, because it is yours permanently and you will need it every time you take an appointment.

Then check the rest of the register while you are in there: your service address, the PSC entries, and whether anyone listed as a director actually still is. The register is the public face of your company, and it is the first thing a lender, a buyer or a prospective client looks at — a point worth remembering alongside what a lender sees before they read a word you wrote. Getting the filings right is unglamorous. Being struck off because nobody opened the post is considerably worse.

Common questions

Do I have to verify my identity with Companies House?

Yes, if you are a director of a UK company, a member of an LLP, or a person with significant control. Verification became compulsory on 18 November 2025 and applies regardless of company size or whether the company trades — the sole director of a dormant company is caught in exactly the same way as the board of a trading business. You verify once as an individual, either directly through GOV.UK One Login or via an authorised corporate service provider such as an accountant or solicitor, and the personal code you receive then covers every company you are involved with.

When is my deadline for Companies House identity verification?

It depends on your role. New directors and new incorporations have had to be verified at the point of appointment since 18 November 2025. Existing directors and LLP members must provide their personal code with the first confirmation statement their company files after that date, so the deadline follows your company's own filing date rather than a fixed national one. People with significant control who are also directors have 14 days from that confirmation statement. People with significant control who are not directors have a 14-day window starting on the first day of their birth month, which is easy to overlook.

What happens if a director does not verify?

Acting as a director without having verified your identity is a criminal offence punishable by a fine, and it is a personal offence rather than a corporate one. The company and its officers can also commit an offence by allowing an unverified person to act as a director. Importantly, the director's appointment and the decisions they have taken remain legally valid, so contracts signed in the interim are not undone. The practical risk is therefore personal liability and a criminal record rather than commercial chaos, alongside the disruption of being unable to make filings that require the code.

Will small companies have to publish their profit and loss account?

Yes. The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act removes the option for small and micro-entity companies to file abridged or filleted accounts, meaning a profit and loss account will have to be filed and will appear on the public register. Turnover and profit figures that have been private since incorporation become visible to competitors, customers, suppliers and staff. If your pricing strategy or margins depend on that information not being public, this is worth planning for now rather than discovering at your next filing. Speak to your accountant about the timetable applying to your own accounting period.