ID verification at Companies House
ID verification at Companies House
With the final deadline for ID verification at Companies House less than a month away, one in four company directors are still not verified.
ID verification is mandatory for all directors on the Companies House register, with the initial transition period set to end on 17 November 2026, as per our website https://kennedysaccounting.uk/proof-of-id-verification-for-directors-will-be-introduced-on-companies-house-register-insights/
But one in four UK registered directors have not verified their identity yet with 807,000 individuals having already missed their ID deadline.
As of mid-October, a total of 4,144,344 directors and beneficial owners had completed their verification statements, leaving 25% of directors unverified, shows analysis of all ID registered directors at Companies House, which means that 1.4m directors and beneficial owners have only four weeks to complete the process or face penalties and even court action, including over 10,000 overseas based directors.
The Companies House register now has a very clear green tick showing whether a director has been ID verified, immediately alerting the director’s status and the fact they have not complied with the mandatory transparency requirements.
For existing directors, the deadline is the company’s next confirmation statement, and the transition year ends on 18 November 2026. This has been on the radar for months so it is difficult to see why so many directors are still ignoring the requirement.
There is no excuse for UK directors not to have completed the verification process as all were written to by Companies House informing them well in advance of their registration deadline.
More than 800,000 have missed their deadline, and Companies House says a person who misses the date may be committing an offence and may face a financial penalty, and that a note may be published against their name, also a company cannot file its confirmation statement until its directors have verified.
It is not only UK based directors who have failed to prove their identity as 10,925 company directors living abroad have not filed their documents as yet, the majority of whom are living in the UAE, US, Spain, France and Australia.
Quick tips – not yet started?
1. Find the company’s confirmation statement date on the Companies House register – that is the deadline for every director.
2. Check who needs to verify and who already has completed.
3. Try Gov.UK One Login or Government Gateway first if you have a chipped passport. If not, organise verification through an ASCP provider.
4. Once verified, provide the 11-character personal code for each role – with the confirmation statement for a directorship, and through the persons with significant control (PSC) verification service for a PSC role.
If you need any help, please get in touch with us here at Kennedys Accounting, we will be pleased to assist and we are ACSP providers.