What this means for you

Since 18 November 2025, verifying your identity with Companies House has been a legal requirement — not an optional extra. If you're a director, or a person with significant control (PSC) of a UK company, this now applies to you, and there's a 12-month transition window running to 18 November 2026 for people who were already in post before the rules started.

This sits alongside the wider Companies House reforms aimed at reducing fraud on the register — but the immediate, practical question for most small business owners is simply: when do I need to do this, and how?

Key dates and who's affected

  • New directors and new companies: identity verification is required at the point of incorporating a company or being appointed as a director — this has applied since 18 November 2025.
  • Existing directors: need to verify during their company's next confirmation statement filing after 18 November 2025, within the 12-month transition period.
  • Existing PSCs: need to verify within 12 months of 18 November 2025 (by 18 November 2026), with individual submission windows depending on your company's confirmation statement date or, for PSCs who aren't also directors, the first 14 days of your birth month.

Companies House estimates that 6 to 7 million people will need to verify their identity by mid-November 2026, when the transition period ends.

How verification works

There are two routes:

  1. GOV.UK One Login, done yourself online. You can verify using a biometric passport from any country, or a UK photo driving licence, biometric residence permit, residence card or Frontier Worker permit, along with your current address and the year you moved in. If you don't have one of those documents, you can instead verify using bank or building society details, or in person at the Post Office.
  2. An Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP) — typically your accountant or solicitor — who is themselves registered with Companies House and can verify your identity on your behalf as part of their existing services.

Verification through GOV.UK One Login is free and, according to Companies House, typically takes a few minutes. It's a one-off requirement per person — once verified, you don't need to repeat it for every company you're involved with.

What happens if you don't verify

Companies House has been clear that this is a legal requirement, not guidance you can quietly skip. If you're due to verify and don't, you risk being unable to file your confirmation statement, and continuing to act as a director without verifying when required is against the law. Companies House has also warned against lending your identity to let someone else run a company in your name — a practice the reforms are specifically designed to close down.

What you should do now

  • Check whether you're a director, a PSC, or both, for every UK company you're involved with.
  • Find out your company's next confirmation statement date — that's likely your trigger point if you're an existing director.
  • If you're a PSC who isn't also a director, note the first 14 days of your birth month as your likely window.
  • Decide whether you'll verify yourself via GOV.UK One Login, or ask your accountant whether they're a registered ACSP who can do it as part of your existing arrangement.
  • Don't leave it until your confirmation statement is due — verification can be done in advance.

How ReceiptTidy helps

To be clear about scope: ReceiptTidy doesn't perform identity verification, and this isn't something bookkeeping software can do on your behalf — it's a personal legal check tied to you as an individual, done through GOV.UK One Login or an authorised agent. What ReceiptTidy does is keep the everyday financial admin around your company in good order — capturing receipts and invoices by photo or email, extracting the supplier, date, amount and VAT with AI, and syncing approved records into Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, Sage or Zoho Books — so that while you're dealing with one-off compliance steps like this, your day-to-day bookkeeping doesn't fall behind.

Sources

This article is general information, not tax or legal advice. Check the latest HMRC / GOV.UK guidance or speak to an accountant about your situation.