If you run your own company and hold a controlling stake in it, giving your Companies House personal code to your accountant may leave one job unfinished. Your accountant can use the code for your directorship when filing the company’s confirmation statement. You must also make sure it is submitted separately for your role as a person with significant control (PSC). Each role has its own deadline.
Why is Companies House checking identities?
Think about the last time you looked up a customer or supplier before agreeing credit terms. The register is more useful if you can trust that the people named as directors are who they claim to be. The same information helps investigators establish who controls a company when tracing fraud or money laundering.
The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 gave Companies House a more active role in protecting the register. The Registrar of Companies can question information, ask for evidence and remove inaccurate material where the legal conditions are met. Identity checks address a weakness in the previous system: it was too easy to put a false name on a filing and use a UK company to conceal who was behind it. A more reliable register supports everyday business decisions as well as the work of agencies tackling economic crime and threats to national security.
Who must verify, and when?
The requirement covers every individual company director, every individual PSC and every individual member of a limited liability partnership (LLP). This includes ordinary and designated LLP members. A major shareholder may be a PSC, although someone can also qualify through other forms of control.
17 November 2026 is the final day of the 12-month transition year that began on 18 November 2025. For an existing director or LLP member, the practical deadline is tied to the company’s or LLP’s next confirmation statement during that transition. If yours was due in June, you may already be overdue. A new director must verify before appointment. If you are a director of several companies, each company needs your personal code for its own filing.
The deadline owner-directors can easily miss
Suppose you are already registered as both a director and a PSC, and your company’s confirmation statement date is 10 November 2026. Your code goes on the confirmation statement for your directorship. For your PSC role, you must also submit it through the Companies House PSC service between 11 and 24 November. The 14 days run from the day after the confirmation statement date, even if the company files early.
If you were already a PSC when the rules began and you are not a director of that company, your window is the first 14 days of your birth month. Someone newly added to the register as a PSC can supply their code on registration or within 14 days afterwards. Companies House shows the relevant dates on the register, so you can check the window for each role you hold.
How do you verify?
- Through GOV.UK One Login. Start with the Companies House identity verification service. The government check is free.
- At a participating Post Office branch. Start online. If offered an in-person check, enter your photo ID details first, then take that ID and your customer letter to a branch that provides the service.
- Through an authorised agent. An accountant, solicitor or company formation agent can check your identity if registered with Companies House as an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP). The agent may charge a fee.
What happens if you miss the deadline?
It is unlawful to continue acting as a director once your verification deadline has passed and you remain unverified. The company cannot file its confirmation statement until all its directors have verified and it can supply the required details. Companies House can impose financial penalties or pursue prosecution. A late confirmation statement can also lead to a separate conviction. Knowingly giving the Registrar materially false information is a separate offence that can carry up to two years’ imprisonment on conviction on indictment.
The Insolvency Service secured its convictions for identity verification offences on 16 September 2026, when City of London Magistrates’ Court fined three directors. One director verified his own identity but was prosecuted because he knew a fellow director remained unverified and failed to take reasonable steps to stop that director from acting for the company. The case gives boards a reason to check every director’s position before anyone signs accounts or takes part in a board decision.
How many people have verified?
On 11 June 2026, Companies House reported that nearly four million people had verified their identities and linked them to their appointments. That figure includes both directors and PSCs. Its later quarterly release, published on 29 October, counts verified appointments. A director serving on three boards can appear three times in that measure, so it cannot give a headcount of individual directors who have verified.
What should you check now?
Look up your company’s confirmation statement date and check the people listed as directors and PSCs. If an accountant or company secretary handles your filings, ask them to confirm which roles they have submitted your code for. For an owner-director, the most useful question may be the simplest: “Has my PSC submission gone in as well?”
For help reviewing your company’s filing responsibilities, get in touch with PJS.
PJS is the trading name of PJS Business & Advisory Ltd. PJS Business & Advisory Ltd is not a firm of solicitors and is not regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. We provide commercial advisory services and help with legal matters that do not need a solicitor (known as non-reserved legal activities). We do not conduct court proceedings; where a matter needs a solicitor, we work alongside trusted firms. This article is general information, not advice on your own circumstances.
