A new director cannot be appointed until they have proved who they are. Existing directors are receiving letters from Companies House with a date on them, and that date sets the clock for when each person must complete their check. For most companies, the trigger is the next confirmation statement. Miss the window and the appointment is at risk, with penalties for the company and the individual. So the practical question for any director, company secretary, or accountant right now is simple: how do you complete companies house identity verification quickly, and how do you make sure it actually goes through the first time.
The progress numbers explain why this is no longer a future problem. Nearly 4 million individuals have verified their identity and linked their appointments since the requirement came in, according to the third ECCTA progress report published on 11 June 2026. The same body of guidance estimates that 6 to 7 million people will need to verify by mid-November 2026. The first wave moved early and voluntarily. The next wave is most of the directors and people with significant control on the register, and they are working to deadlines they did not set.
What companies house identity verification now requires
Identity verification is the legal requirement to confirm that a named director or person with significant control is a real individual, and that the person filing on their behalf is who they say they are. It applies to new and existing directors, to PSCs, and to anyone who files on a company’s behalf. The mechanism is a single personal code. You verify once, you receive an 11-character Companies House personal code, and that code is reused across every directorship and PSC role you hold. Verify a second time for a second company and you do not start again.
Companies House describes the shift behind this as a move “from a passive register to a trusted guardian of critical data”. The register used to accept what it was told. It now checks. For a legitimate director, that means one verification and a code that follows you. The easy route onto the register is closing for everyone else.
The timeline
Voluntary verification opened in April 2025 through GOV.UK One Login. By 3 November 2025, more than one million people had verified ahead of the rules. From 18 November 2025, verification became compulsory for new directors and PSCs, who must verify before they are appointed.
For existing directors and PSCs, the requirement is staggered across the transition year that started on 5 March 2026. Each company’s deadline is tied to its next confirmation statement date, and Companies House writes to companies with those dates. The transition ends in mid-November 2026, the point by which an estimated 6 to 7 million existing directors and PSCs are expected to have verified. There is no single early cut-off for everyone. The letter on your desk carries your date.
The two ways to verify your identity for Companies House
Both routes end in the same personal code. The difference is who runs the check.
The first route is direct, through GOV.UK One Login. It is free. One Login selects an identity-checking method and completes the check for the individual. For a director with a passport or driving licence to hand and a few minutes spare, it is straightforward.
The second route runs through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider, an ACSP. This is a Companies House authorised agent, usually an accountant, solicitor, or company formation agent, that is registered with Companies House and supervised by a UK anti-money-laundering body. The individual provides approved documents and the ACSP confirms their identity, then files on their behalf. For accountancy firms managing verification across a client book, the ACSP route is the practical one. It is also where quality matters most, because an ACSP’s verification is only as strong as the identity check sitting behind it. A manual look at a scanned passport and a check against authoritative data are not the same exercise, and they do not produce the same completion rate or the same defensibility if a filing is ever questioned. The detail of how the ACSP route works for firms is covered in our guide to companies house identity verification and ACSPs.
Why the register clean-up matters to legitimate businesses
The verification requirement is one part of a wider effort to make the register trustworthy, and the rest of that effort is what makes verification worth the few minutes it takes. Since March 2024, Companies House has removed 151,000 company addresses linked to registered-office abuse, where companies were registered at addresses without permission. It has shared around 850 intelligence reports with law enforcement, supporting the seizure of millions of pounds in suspected criminal proceeds.
For a real business, a register full of shell companies and fake directors is not an abstract problem. It is the entity that fraudulently used your registered address, or the supplier whose credentials turned out to be fabricated. A register that verifies its directors raises the cost of fraud for everyone trading through it. The background to the Act and what is changing is set out in our explainer on companies house identity verification under ECCTA.
What good verification looks like for a director or PSC
From the director’s side, a good check is fast and final. You confirm who you are, the check passes against authoritative records, and you have your code. No second attempt, no support ticket, no waiting for a manual review. A check that completes in one go gives you a verified director. One that fails halfway leaves the appointment stuck in limbo.
That outcome depends on how the check is run. A deterministic check confirms identity against authoritative data sources, the records that already hold the truth about a person. The probabilistic alternative estimates a likelihood from document images and selfies, and a likelihood can fall short of a pass on a poor photo or an awkward angle. For ECCTA identity verification across the volume the register now demands, the method that returns a clear yes against real data is the one that gets directors through without friction and gives the firm a trail it can stand behind.
This is the standard worth applying whether you verify directly or through an ACSP, and it is the lens to use when choosing a digital identity partner for director identity verification UK firms have to deliver at volume.
Where DVS-certified verification fits
The regulator’s question, in the end, is one of authority, not anomaly. Companies House is not asking whether a filing looks unusual. It is asking whether the person behind it is real and entitled to act for the company. That is an identity question, and it has an identity answer.
OneID is a UK digital verification services provider, certified under the Digital Verification Services Trust Framework as the first Identity Service Provider under the scheme, and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Verification runs against authoritative data sources rather than relying on document images alone, which is what produces a clear, deterministic result. OneID reports completion rates of 80 to 90 per cent, compared with the 50 to 60 per cent OneID observes from passport-chip and document-led flows. Every check produces an audit-ready evidence trail, the kind of defensible record an ACSP or in-house compliance team wants on file if a filing is ever challenged.
For a firm carrying out director identity verification across a client book, that combination matters: more verifications that complete on the first attempt, less manual chasing, and evidence that holds up. It is the practical meaning of verified person, verified data. A real individual, confirmed against records that already hold the truth, with proof of the check kept on file.
Companies House identity verification is not going away, and the deadline on those letters is fixed. The directors who clear it without friction will be the ones whose check ran against authoritative data the first time. If you are deciding how your firm or your board will handle verification before mid-November 2026, the route that completes fastest and leaves the cleanest record is the one worth setting up now. Talk to OneID about director and PSC identity verification at scale.
References
GOV.UK / Companies House, “Progress made in cleaning up Companies House register as further steps taken to tackle economic crime”, 11 June 2026. URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/progress-made-in-cleaning-up-companies-house-register-as-further-steps-taken-to-tackle-economic-crime
GOV.UK, “Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023: third progress report” (publication page), 2026. URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/economic-crime-and-corporate-transparency-act-2023-third-progress-report
GOV.UK / Companies House, “Third progress report on the implementation and operation of Parts 1 to 3 of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023” (report PDF), 2026. URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a28300ee371d9d2c0052b3e/third-report-on-the-implementation-and-operation-of-parts-1-to-3-of-the-economic-crim-and-corporate-transparency-act-2023.pdf
GOV.UK, “Verifying your identity for Companies House” (guidance), 2026. URL: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/verifying-your-identity-for-companies-house
GOV.UK, “Companies House personal codes for identity verification” (guidance), 2026. URL: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/companies-house-personal-codes-for-identity-verification
GOV.UK, “One million people verify identity early ahead of Companies House changes”, 3 November 2025. URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/one-million-people-verify-identity-early-ahead-of-companies-house-changes
Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, legislation.gov.uk. URL: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/56
OneID, oneid.uk, 2026. URL: https://oneid.uk
