Last Updated on September 18, 2026
Most directors have heard something about Companies House identity checks, and filed it under “sometime before November”.
That is the mistake. And Companies House has said so, in plain English, on its own campaign site.
The date everyone half remembers is 18 November 2025. Here is what the government page actually says about it: “This date is not a deadline. It marks the start of a 12-month transition period.”
There is no single national deadline here. Yours is already printed on your own company record.
What actually changed
Identity verification became a legal requirement on 18 November 2025, under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023. It applies to company directors, people with significant control (PSCs), and members of an LLP.
You verify once, either directly through GOV.UK One Login or through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider, which in most cases means your accountant. You get a Companies House personal code. That code links you to every role you hold, in every company.
The 12-month transition period started on 18 November 2025 and runs out this November.
Your real deadline is earlier than you think
For directors, the guidance is specific. You provide your personal code as part of your company’s next confirmation statement. Not in November. On your confirmation statement date.
If your confirmation statement falls in October, your deadline is October. Three companies means three separate filings.
PSCs work differently again, and this is where owners come unstuck.
| Your role | Where the code goes | When |
|---|---|---|
| Director only | Your company’s confirmation statement | Your company’s next confirmation statement date |
| Director and PSC of the same company | Twice. Once in the statement, once in the PSC service | 14 days starting the day after the confirmation statement date |
| PSC, not a director | PSC verification service | First 14 days of your birth month |
| Director of several companies | Each company’s statement | Each company’s own date |
One detail catches people out. Filing your confirmation statement early does not move the PSC window. Companies House states it plainly: if the company files early, the dates of your 14 day period do not change. The window is fixed to the date, not to when you file.
One code. Up to three separate submissions.
Verification gets you the code. Filing it in the right place, for each role you hold, before each date, is a separate job. Most people stop after step one and assume they are done.
Half the register still has not done it
Companies House publishes quarterly compliance data. Its management information for April to June 2026, published on 30 July, was read by accountancy firm PKF Francis Clark, which reported 55% compliance for directors, 50% for LLP members and 42% for PSCs by the end of June.
Read what those percentages actually count. Companies House describes the dataset as covering director and PSC appointments, not people. A director of three companies counts three times. So the figure tells you how much of the register is clean. It does not tell you how many owners have picked up a passport.
The PSC number is the one to worry about. PSCs own small companies, and they are least likely to have acted.
What happens if you miss it
The government campaign site is blunt. If you do not comply on time you are committing an offence, and “You will not be able to make any filings for your company or start a new company.”
Note the order. You lose the ability to file before anyone bills you. Then the filing you cannot make goes overdue. Then your public record says so, where anyone can read it.
ICAS, summarising the Companies House enforcement guidance, sets out the escalation: reminders and nudges first, then operational restrictions, then civil financial penalties, then criminal prosecution in serious cases, which it defines as three or more offences over five years, fraudulent identity documents, or evidence of criminal activity. Enforcement has not started. It begins when the transition period ends.
Why a marketing site cares about company admin
Because your Companies House record is the most widely read page about your business that you did not write.
When a customer checks whether you are real, when a lender prices you, when a directory decides whether your listing stays up, and increasingly when someone asks an AI assistant for a business they can trust, the public register is what gets checked.
We have run that check ourselves, twice. We asked AI tools for a trustworthy architect across 20 UK towns and found 39 of the 92 names could not be found on the Architects Register. We ran the same exercise on AI-recommended roofers, checked against Companies House. The pattern held both times. A business can be named with total confidence by an AI assistant and still fail a two-minute check against the public record.
A company that cannot file is a company whose record is drifting the wrong way. No amount of content fixes that. This is a Start stage job, and it sits underneath everything else you spend money on, as we argued in our piece on why registers beat badges when anyone can call themselves a roofer.
If your record is in order and you want it working for you, you can list your business on the Whito directory. Listings are free, we check them against Companies House, and nobody pays to appear.
The takeaway
Stop waiting for November. Open your own company record today, find your confirmation statement date, and work backwards from it.
Verify, save your personal code somewhere you will find it again, and check whether you also have to file it separately as a PSC. Director of more than one company? Write down every date.
It is an afternoon of admin. The alternative is a company that cannot file.
