Do I need to verify my identity for Companies House?

Yes, if you're a company director or a person with significant control of a UK company. Directors need to verify by the time the company files its next confirmation statement, and a person with significant control who isn't a director has a date set by the month they were born.

That's the short answer. The longer one matters, because there's no single national deadline, nobody sends you a letter with your date on it, and the rule is now part of UK company law.

Is identity verification actually compulsory now?

Yes. Identity verification became a mandatory part of UK company law on 18 November 2025, under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act. That opened a twelve-month transition period. Companies House estimates that six to seven million people - every director and every person with significant control of a UK company - need to be verified by the time it closes in mid-November 2026.

Its own guidance records the requirements as legally binding as of 30 July 2026. So this isn't a consultation or a plan. It's in force, and at the time of writing there are about ten weeks of the transition left.

A "person with significant control", usually shortened to PSC, is simply someone who has a real say over how a company is run, such as a major shareholder. In a small business that's often the owner, and often the same person as the director.

Why your deadline is different from everyone else's

Your date is personal. It depends on your role and on dates specific to you.

If you're a director, you supply your personal code with your company's next confirmation statement. That's the part that catches people out. Confirmation statement dates are scattered across the year, so your deadline might be next month or next spring, and nobody sends a reminder that says "verify by this date".

If you're a person with significant control but not a director, the window is fourteen days from the start of the month you were born in. It's an unusual rule and an easy one to miss, because nothing else in company administration works that way.

If you're both a director and a PSC, you supply the code separately for each role - once with the confirmation statement, and again within fourteen days of that date for the PSC side. Same code, two filings.

If you became a PSC after 18 November 2025, it's due when you're first added to the register, or within fourteen days.

Overseas companies with a UK establishment work to the anniversary of that establishment's registration instead.

So don't assume that because a colleague or your accountant has sorted theirs, yours is handled. Check your own confirmation statement date on the Companies House register. It's public and takes about thirty seconds.

If you'd like that date, and the ones for your other directors, to turn up as reminders well before they're due, we're happy to set up a simple automation that does it for you.

How do you verify?

There are two routes.

GOV.UK One Login is free and, by Companies House's own account, usually takes minutes. Think of it as one front-door key for government services. It asks a few questions and then sends you down one of three paths - an app-based check, security questions online, or turning up at a participating Post Office with photo ID. There's no charge at any point.

An Authorised Corporate Service Provider is, in practice, your accountant or solicitor, if they're registered with Companies House and supervised for anti-money-laundering purposes. They can verify you on your behalf, and they may charge for it.

Either way, what you get at the end is a Companies House personal code. The name misleads people, so it's worth being clear: the code belongs to you, not to your company. It works like a passport number rather than a company reference. If you're a director of four companies, you verify once and quote the same code in four places. If you resign from one and join another, it travels with you.

What happens if you miss your date?

Companies House is clear that if you don't comply on time, you're committing an offence. It says there will be "a range of consequences, including a financial penalty", and separately that it will be an offence to act as a director without being verified.

The practical consequences can arrive sooner than any penalty. An unverified person can't make filings and can't set up new companies. If you've ever needed to file something at Companies House in a hurry - a share allotment before a funding round, a change of registered office before a deadline - you'll know how awkward that would be at the wrong moment.

There is some reassurance. Companies House has said it will "help and support enterprises to comply" and take a proportionate approach to enforcement. That's genuinely helpful if you've only just found out about this. It's still worth doing now rather than later.

Why an AI and automation business is writing about this

There's no AI in this article, and that's deliberate.

This is a good example of what actually trips up small businesses, which is rarely anything dramatic. It's a rule that changed quietly, applies to you personally, has a deadline worked out from a date you don't have memorised, and arrives with no letter through the door. Over a million people had already verified voluntarily before it became mandatory, which suggests a large number of those who haven't simply don't know there's anything to do.

Verifying yourself doesn't need automating. It needs about fifteen minutes and knowing it exists. But if this one got past you, it's worth asking what else might have - the payroll date, the insurance renewal, the licence that quietly lapses. Those are the jobs a system that watches dates on your behalf does well. You can read more about the kind of automation we set up for small businesses.

If you'd find it useful to have all of those dates gathered into one place with automatic reminders, we're happy to set that up so you're not relying on memory.

For now, the one thing to do is check your confirmation statement date.

Sources

• When you need to verify your identity for Companies House - GOV.UK
• Verifying your identity for Companies House - GOV.UK
• Companies House confirms identity verification rollout from 18 November 2025 - GOV.UK
• Identity verification: changes to UK company law - GOV.UK

Checked against the above on 8 September 2026. Rules change; if you are reading this much later, verify the dates before relying on them.