Companies House identity verification: what accountants must do for every director client

Since 18 November 2025 every company director and person with significant control has to verify their identity with Companies House. For a practice, that is a list of people, not a rule: every director of every company client, plus the people behind them. This guide is the list.

What the rule is

Identity verification is a legal requirement under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act. Each person verifies once and gets a Companies House personal code. From then on the code is used on filings, and the company's confirmation statement confirms that every director has verified. Continuing to act as a director after the person's deadline without verifying is an offence, and the company cannot file its confirmation statement until it is done.

When each person's deadline falls depends on their role and when they started it; Companies House's guidance sets the timing by case rather than one date for everyone, which is why the practice needs a list.

Two ways to verify

1. GOV.UK One Login. Free. The person answers questions and proves who they are through the app, security questions or at a Post Office. Most directors can do this themselves in a quarter of an hour, if someone tells them to.
2. Through an authorised agent (ACSP). An accountant or solicitor registered with a UK anti-money-laundering supervisory body can register with Companies House as an authorised corporate service provider and verify clients' identities. Companies House also says that, in future, firms will need to be registered as an authorised agent to file on clients' behalf at all.

For a practice that files for clients, the second route is the one to get on now, because the day filing requires it is the day every unregistered practice stops being able to do its job.

People with significant control

A PSC is given a 14-day period in which to provide their personal code. Many PSCs are not directors and have never dealt with Companies House; the practice usually finds out they exist from the register, not from the client.

The confirmation statement is where it bites

The next confirmation statement for each company must carry each director's personal code and a tick confirming every director has verified. No codes, no statement; and a company that does not file its statement can be fined up to £5,000 and struck off. The fee itself is £50 online and £110 on paper, and the statement is due within 14 days of the review date. Our Companies House penalty calculator gives the file-by date.

What to tell clients

Most directors will hear "identity verification" and assume it is one more thing the accountant does. Some of it is, if the practice becomes an ACSP; the One Login route cannot be done for them. The message that works: it is free, it takes a quarter of an hour, it is done once, and the company cannot file its next confirmation statement until every director has done it. Send the GOV.UK link, not a summary of it, so the client lands on the official page and not on one of the paid "verification services" that have appeared around the requirement.

The practice task list

1. Export every company client with its directors and PSCs.
2. Mark who has verified and holds a code. Ask; do not assume.
3. Sort by the next confirmation statement date. Those due soonest go first.
4. Send each unverified person the One Login route with a deadline two weeks before their statement is due.
5. Decide whether the practice registers as an ACSP, and start it.
6. Add "personal code received" to the onboarding checklist for every new client, next to the engagement letter and the identity documents the practice already collects for anti-money-laundering checks (see the AML checklist).

Done once, this becomes a field on the client record. Not done, it becomes a filing that cannot go in on the day it is due.

This is general information, not legal advice.