Companies House Identity Verification for Directors: What to Do and By When

In short: every company director and every person with significant control (PSC) must verify their identity with Companies House. Since 18 November 2025, new directors verify before they are appointed. Existing directors must do it before the company's next confirmation statement, and existing PSCs have their own 14 day window. Verifying through GOV.UK One Login is free and gives you a personal code that you link to each of your roles.

This guide explains who is covered, how to work out your own deadline, the two ways to verify, and what happens if you leave it too late. It is written for directors and owners of UK companies, and for anyone who wants to understand what a verified director means when they look a company up.

Why identity verification exists

Identity verification is a legal requirement introduced by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023. Companies House says its purpose is to deter people who want to use companies for illegal purposes, reduce fraud and make the register more accurate.

It was voluntary from 8 April 2025 and became compulsory on 18 November 2025. Companies House is clear that 18 November 2025 was not a deadline. It started a 12 month transition period, during which every existing director and PSC must verify by their own due date.

Who must verify

You must verify your identity if you are:

• a director of a company, or the equivalent, such as a member of an LLP
• a director of an overseas company registered in the UK
• a person with significant control (PSC), usually someone with more than 25% of the shares or votes
• an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP), also called a Companies House authorised agent

In most cases you verify once. You must not verify again unless Companies House asks you to.

Who is not covered yet

Companies House will introduce verification later for people who file on behalf of a company, limited partnerships, corporate directors, corporate members of LLPs and officers of corporate PSCs. Until that happens, a company secretary or bookkeeper who only files documents does not need to verify for that reason alone.

When you need to verify

Your deadline depends on your role and on when you started it. You can check the dates for each of your roles on the Companies House register.

Directors

If you became a director on or after 18 November 2025, you give your personal code in the appointment filing. For a new company, every director's code goes into the registration itself.

If you were already a director, you give your code in the company's next confirmation statement. If you are a director of several companies, you do this for each one, using the same code. The company cannot file its confirmation statement until all its directors are verified.

People with significant control

Every PSC has a 14 day period in which to provide their personal code, using the Companies House service for PSCs. When that period falls depends on your situation:

1. You became a PSC after 18 November 2025. Provide the code when you are added to the register, or within 14 days.
2. You were a PSC before then and are also a director. Your 14 days start on the day after the company's confirmation statement date. Filing the statement early does not move them.
3. You were a PSC before then and are not a director. Your 14 days are the first 14 days of your birth month. A PSC born on 22 January, for example, starts on 1 January.

If you are both a director and a PSC of the same company, you give the code separately for each role.

How to verify

There are only two ways to verify. Companies House says not to post or email identity documents to it.

Option 1: GOV.UK One Login (free)

The "Verify your identity for Companies House" service uses GOV.UK One Login and costs nothing. It asks some questions about you, not your company, and then guides you down one of three routes:

• An app, using your photo ID and your phone
• Online security questions, using your bank or building society details and your National Insurance number
• A participating Post Office, after you first enter your photo ID details online

To verify online you need one of these photo IDs: a biometric passport from any country, a UK photo driving licence (full or provisional), a UK biometric residence permit, a UK biometric residence card or a UK Frontier Worker permit. You also need your current address and the year you moved in.

Expired documents have limits. You cannot use an expired passport with the app. A DVLA driving licence can be used up to 90 days after it expired, and a residence permit, residence card or Frontier Worker permit up to 18 months after. The bank details and Post Office routes do not accept expired documents.

Each email address can only be used once to verify an identity. If you share an inbox with a partner or colleague, one of you needs a different address.

Option 2: an Authorised Corporate Service Provider

You can ask an ACSP to verify you instead. This is usually an accountant or a solicitor who is registered with Companies House and supervised for anti-money laundering purposes. It works from any country, which helps directors who live abroad.

The agent will ask for documents from an approved list and may charge a fee. If you already have an accountant or solicitor, ask whether they are registered as an ACSP. Companies House also publishes a list of ACSPs, although it only includes agents who asked to be listed.

Your personal code

When you verify, you get a Companies House personal code. It is 11 characters long and belongs to you, not to any company.

If you verified through GOV.UK One Login, you can see it by signing in to Companies House and choosing "Manage account". If you verified this way after 8 July 2026, the code was also sent to you by email. If an ACSP verified you, the code is emailed to the address the agent gave, so check it is right.

You use the same code for every role you hold. You link it to Companies House records:

• as a director, in the company's next confirmation statement, or in your appointment filing
• as a PSC, through the "Provide identity verification details for a PSC" service

Treat the code like your tax reference. Share it only with people you trust to file for you, such as your accountant. If you think it has been shared or compromised, Companies House can issue a new code and cancel the old one.

If the code will not link to your record, the usual cause is a mismatch in your details, often a wrong date of birth on the register. You can check and correct it through Companies House WebFiling.

What happens if you do not verify

Missing your deadline is not a paperwork slip. If you do not meet the requirements on time, you may be committing an offence and could face prosecution and a fine, or a financial penalty.

For directors the risk spreads. If you keep acting as a director after the deadline without verifying, you commit an offence, and the company and all its directors may be committing one too. Companies House has also said that in future it will publish a note against the name of anyone who has not verified, and that person will not be able to become a new director, register a new company or register as an ACSP.

Companies House also warns against lending your identity to anyone else. Do not agree to be named as a director of a company you do not really run. Criminals can take out loans in your name, and you remain legally responsible.

What it means when you check a company

For anyone checking a business, identity verification adds a useful signal. When a director or PSC links their code, Companies House shows a verification statement on the public register. If an ACSP carried out the check, the statement names the agent and its anti-money laundering supervisor.

A verified director is a real, identified person. It says nothing about the quality of the company's work, its finances or its prices. Treat it as one fact among several, next to the company's age, its filing record and who controls it. Our guide to what "verified" really means explains the difference between checks like this and a quality rating.

How TrustValet can help

TrustValet is a register built from public records. Every company page in our register shows what Companies House holds, including how many active directors have verified their identity, whether the confirmation statement and accounts are overdue, and who controls the company by kind of control. Each fact shows its source and the date we read it, and we re-read published companies about monthly.

If you run a company, search for it and claim the page for free. You can add your website, phone number, description and logo, so a customer who looks you up finds more than a company number. Once your directors are verified, the page will show it after our next read.

If you want to go further, you can apply to get verified. A person checks your company against 14 public registers and your own website, and you get a dated certificate and a live badge. It costs £19 a year or £49 once for five years, as set out on our pricing page, and how we verify lists every check. We never vet workmanship, collect reviews or rate companies.

Need help with the filing itself? Browse accountants, solicitors or business support in our professional services category.