Companies House identity verification is the legal requirement, introduced under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCTA), for company directors and Persons with Significant Control to confirm their identity. From 18 November 2025 it became mandatory for every new director and new incorporation. Existing directors and PSCs must verify by 18 November 2026.
If your business forms companies, manages corporate clients, or relies on company data, this changes a routine filing step into a compliance event with a hard deadline. The person sitting in front of the form has to prove who they are before anything moves. How quickly they can do that, and how cleanly the evidence holds up later, is now your problem to solve.
Companies House identity verification is a one-time check that confirms a real, named person is who they claim to be before they can act for a UK company. Under ECCTA, every director and Person with Significant Control must complete it. New appointments verify before they file. Existing officers verify during a 12-month transition that closes on 18 November 2026.
Three groups are in scope: company directors, Persons with Significant Control, and anyone who files documents at Companies House on a company’s behalf.
Directors and PSCs are the headline. Companies House estimates six to seven million people fall into these two groups across the UK. A PSC is, broadly, anyone who owns or controls more than 25% of a company’s shares or voting rights, or who otherwise exerts significant influence.
The third group covers the people who actually submit filings, including company secretaries, accountants, and formation agents acting as agents or presenters. Mandatory identity verification for agents and presenters is expected later in 2026. When it lands, a firm filing for clients will need its own verified, registered status before Companies House accepts the documents.
For most businesses, the practical question is volume. A holding structure with several directors and a handful of PSCs across group companies can carry a dozen verifications. An accountancy practice or formation agent carries that for every client on its book.
The system runs on two dates. From 18 November 2025, identity verification is already mandatory for every new director and every new incorporation. That is live law now, not a future change.
By 18 November 2026, every existing director and PSC must have verified. Companies House is phasing this across a 12-month transition rather than asking six to seven million people to verify at once. Existing directors verify by their company’s next confirmation statement after the window opens. Existing PSCs verify within a set period of a direction from Companies House, or in their birth month, depending on their circumstances.
The phasing matters for planning. A company with a confirmation statement due in, say, March cannot wait until November. Its directors need verified status before that statement is filed. Treating 18 November 2026 as the single deadline risks missing an earlier one tied to your own filing calendar.
|
Who |
What they must do |
By when |
|
New directors (from 18 Nov 2025) |
Verify identity before appointment is registered |
Already mandatory |
|
New incorporations (from 18 Nov 2025) |
All directors and PSCs verify at incorporation |
Already mandatory |
|
Existing directors |
Verify identity |
By the company’s next confirmation statement, and no later than 18 Nov 2026 |
|
Existing PSCs |
Verify identity |
Within the window set by a Companies House direction, or in their birth month, by 18 Nov 2026 |
|
Agents and presenters who file |
Become a registered, verified filer |
Expected later in 2026 |
There are two routes, and a director can use either.
The first is to verify directly through GOV.UK One Login, the government’s own identity service. The person uses a biometric passport or a UK driving licence through the One Login app, or visits a participating Post Office to verify in person. Once verified, they receive an identity verification code that links to their Companies House record.
The second route is through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider. The ACSP runs the identity check, confirms it to Companies House on the person’s behalf, and the director never touches the government service directly. This is the route most businesses with multiple officers or corporate clients will use, because it keeps the verification inside a process the firm controls and can evidence.
From the verifying person’s side, the experience varies sharply by method. A document-and-passport-chip check means downloading an app, photographing an identity document, holding a phone steady to read the chip, and waiting. A good proportion of people stall partway through. A bank-verified check asks the person to confirm their identity through a service they already use and trust, and completes in seconds. Both routes produce a valid result, but they do not produce it at the same rate.
An Authorised Corporate Service Provider is a firm that is registered with Companies House and supervised for anti-money-laundering purposes, usually an accountant, solicitor, or company formation agent. An ACSP can verify a person’s identity and confirm that verification to Companies House on their behalf.
You need one if you would rather not send every director and PSC off to verify themselves through GOV.UK One Login, or if you file for clients and want to manage their verification as part of onboarding. For accountancy and formation firms, becoming an ACSP turns identity verification into a service you can offer and charge for, rather than a hurdle your clients trip over alone.
The obligation that comes with it is evidence. An ACSP must carry out the check to the required standard and keep records that stand up to inspection. The identity method an ACSP uses decides both how many clients finish the check and how defensible the record is afterwards. A check that produces a clean, audit-ready result from an authoritative data source is straightforward to stand behind. A photographed document is harder, because a photograph cannot prove on its own that the document is genuine.
Missing the deadline carries real consequences. Failure to verify can be a criminal offence, and Companies House can impose civil financial penalties. In the most serious cases, a company can be struck off the register.
There is a commercial cost beyond the penalty. An unverified director cannot lawfully act, which can stall filings, freeze appointments, and interrupt transactions that depend on a clean Companies House record. For a firm acting for clients, a client who misses the deadline becomes an urgent problem to resolve, often at the worst possible moment.
The way to avoid all of it is to verify early and keep clean evidence of having done so. The hard part is rarely the rule. The hard part is getting six to seven million individual people to complete a check without a large share of them giving up halfway.
The rule is settled. The operational challenge is completion. When a firm has to verify hundreds or thousands of directors and PSCs, the gap between a method that 80 to 90% of people finish and one that 50 to 60% finish is the difference between a manageable programme and a backlog of chasing.
Bank-verified and digital-wallet identity tend to complete at the higher end, because the person confirms their identity through something they already hold and trust, and the check returns in seconds. Passport-chip processes sit lower, because the steps are fiddly and people abandon them. The higher-completion methods also avoid storing copies of identity documents, which reduces the data you have to protect and the evidence you have to justify.
This is where OneID fits. OneID is a digital verification services provider certified under the UK’s Digital Verification Services Trust Framework (DVSTF) and regulated by the FCA. It confirms identity from authoritative sources, including bank-held data, with configurable match counts across multiple independent datasets, and returns an audit-ready result without storing identity documents. For an ACSP or any business verifying directors and PSCs in volume, that means more people finishing the check and cleaner evidence behind every one. Over 10 million people have completed identity checks through OneID’s verification services.
The deadline is fixed at 18 November 2026, and the earlier confirmation-statement dates arrive sooner for many companies. Whether you verify directly through GOV.UK One Login or through an ACSP, the practical decision is which identity method gets the most people through Companies House identity verification with the least friction and the strongest evidence trail. If you are planning verification at volume, that is the question worth answering first.
It is a legal requirement under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act for company directors and Persons with Significant Control to confirm their identity with Companies House. It is a one-time check that proves a real, named person is behind a UK company before they can be appointed or continue to act.
All company directors and all Persons with Significant Control, plus anyone who files documents at Companies House on a company’s behalf. Companies House estimates six to seven million directors and PSCs are in scope. Verification for agents and presenters who file is expected later in 2026.
Identity verification has been mandatory for new directors and new incorporations since 18 November 2025. Existing directors and PSCs must verify by 18 November 2026, phased across a 12-month transition. Many companies face an earlier point tied to their next confirmation statement.
Two routes are available. You can verify directly through GOV.UK One Login using a biometric passport or UK driving licence, or in person at a participating Post Office. Alternatively, an Authorised Corporate Service Provider can run the check and confirm it to Companies House for you.
An Authorised Corporate Service Provider is a Companies House registered, anti-money-laundering supervised firm, such as an accountant, solicitor, or formation agent, that can verify a person’s identity and confirm it to Companies House on their behalf. Firms often use this route to verify directors, PSCs, and clients in volume.
Failing to verify can be a criminal offence, can result in civil financial penalties, and in serious cases can lead to the company being struck off the register. An unverified director cannot lawfully act, which can stall filings, appointments, and transactions that rely on a clean Companies House record.