Companies House are starting to roll out identification for Directors and some PSCs (Persons of Significant Control) from Spring 2025. This will become mandatory from Autumn 2025, date to be confirmed.
“The voluntary period for identity verification is open for business. More than 6 million individuals will need to comply in the 12 months after identity verification becomes a legal requirement later this year. This phased approach reduces the burden on companies. ”
“We expect identity verification to become mandatory from autumn 2025”
Once your identity is verified with Companies House, you receive a personal code, which from Autumn 2025, will need to be:
- Included on Confirmation Statements
- Used when you become a Director or PSC
- Used if you file at Companies House
- Provided to us if we are filing documents for you
Guidance on verifying your identity for Companies House is here:
- Verifying your identity for Companies House
- When you need to verify your identity for Companies House
- Verify your identity for Companies House
The easiest way to verify your identification is via GOV.UK One Login – if you have a biometric passport and a recent smart phone with biometric reader the process takes under ten minutes. Other options are available via GOV.UK One Login, including visiting a Post Office as a last resort.
You will see reference in the guidance to an Accountant, acting as ACSP (Authorised Corporate Service Provider), verifying your ID for you. The Identification Standards for Companies House go considerably beyond those we currently are required to adhere to for Anti Money Laundering, and would require us to use Biometrics or have staff trained to Home Office Fraud Detection Standards, neither of which we have access to. To this end it is not practical for us – and we suspect the majority of Accountants – to verify clients. The only way we could do this would be directing you to a third party verifying company, receiving a report from them, and uploading it to Companies House – this would be circuitous route and would incur costs without making the underlying process any easier.
Although there is no rush at the time of writing (late April 2025) we suggest that Directors, Partners in LLPs and People with Significant Control start the process of verification with Companies House. If it is straightforward then it is done; if there are issues you have time to resolve them.
If you have queries about the process, or the evidence required, we respectfully refer you to Companies House – we cannot override their requirements.
Once you have verified your identification, you will get a “Companies House personal code” – please keep this safe, there is some suggestion that it is difficult to retrieve it later, certainly it cannot be seen by a simple log in to Companies House – presumably there will be an option to recover it or reset it in due course.
There is no need to tell us when you are verified, but we would welcome feedback around any problems encountered and their resolution. We’ll send a reminder once the mandation date is known.