Companies House changes

Often, people use a limited company as a legitimate vehicle to run their business, including many small businesses. It is straightforward to set up a company – but this ease of incorporation is now seen as one of the weaknesses of the process. As a result, Companies House has increased powers to monitor how companies are set up and run and who is behind them, meaning that there are changes on the horizon for company directors and shareholders.

A number of changes have been introduced already, including the ability for Companies House to:

• Query and reject company names which have been chosen to mislead customers, facilitate fraud, or give the false impression that the company is connected to a foreign government.
• Improve the accuracy and reliability of registered office addresses by introducing a new definition for an appropriate address (companies are not able to use a Royal Mail PO Box and equivalent services offered by other parties).

Companies House has been able to improve investigation, enforcement and data sharing by:

• Sharing more information with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to help tackle money laundering, fraud and other criminality.
• Undertaking greater analysis of information held, including comparison against other data sets obtained externally.

Companies House has been able to better prevent disqualified directors from acting by:

• Rejecting documents notifying appointment of a new director to an existing company where the individual is a disqualified director.

Companies House has also been able to require companies to:

• Provide a registered email address to allow Companies House to contact companies about matters relating to their filing quickly and efficiently (this email address will not be shared on the public register).
• Confirm that the future activities of the company are lawful at the point of incorporation, and to confirm this every year on the confirmation statement.

However, Companies House has issued a timeline of future changes, which everyone involved with setting up and running a company should be aware of. By spring 2025 Companies House should be able to:

• Conduct checks on Authorised Corporate Service Providers (ACSPs) to authorise them to carry out verification services – ACSPs will be required to be registered in the UK and be subject to the UK's anti-money laundering regime.
• Allow individuals to voluntarily verify their identity.
• Receive and assess applications from individuals seeking to have residential addresses suppressed from public disclosure in certain circumstances.

By autumn 2025 Companies House should be able to:

• Make identity verification a compulsory part of incorporation and new appointments for new directors and Persons with Significant Control (PSCs)
• Begin the 12-month transition phase to require more than seven million existing directors and PSCs to verify their identity – the identity verification will happen as part of the annual confirmation statement filing.

By spring 2026 Companies House should be able to:

• Make identity verification of the presenters a compulsory part of filing any document.
• Require third-party agents filing on behalf of companies to be registered as an ACSP.
• Reject documents delivered by disqualified directors as they will be prohibited from doing so, unless they are delivered by an ACSP for specified filings permitted by law.

These timeframes might shift, but anyone involved with a company of any size should take specialist advice to ensure that they are complying with current requirements and to ensure that they are prepared for the raft of changes that Companies House intends to introduce.

To discuss this or any other company/commercial matter, contact us.