Companies House

In one of the most significant reforms for decades, mandatory identity verification (IDV) became compulsory for individual directors, members of LLPs, and people with significant control (PSCs) 18 November 2025. The changes apply immediately for new appointments and are being phased in over the next 12 months for in-post directors, members and PSCs.

Mandatory IDV for others (for example, corporate directors, corporate members of LLPs, legal entities qualifying as PSCs, limited partnerships, and those filing documents at Companies House) will follow later.

This regime is intended to make impersonation, fronting and fraudulent incorporations far more difficult while strengthening accountability for corporate activity. It is very likely that the effect of IDV will lead to an increase in enforcement activity in cases where identities are not verified, or where the IDV process throws up previous false representations.   

New restrictions on who can file information at Companies House are scheduled to come into force towards the end of 2026. Once the changes are in force, information filed on behalf of a company will need to be filed by an ID-verified individual who is an officer or employee of that firm, or by an authorised corporate service provider (ACSP) acting on its behalf. Individuals filing on their own behalf will also need to have their identity verified. ACSPs must be supervised by one of the UK’s relevant anti-money laundering supervisory bodies and will need to register their business as an ACSP with Companies House.

The purpose of the changes is to enable all information filed at Companies House to be tracked back to the individual who made the filing (and the organisation and managers of the organisation that allowed the individual to make that filing) and to ensure that agents who file on behalf of others are themselves subject to requirements that aim to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing​.

Companies House is now proactively identifying suspicious companies, querying and rejecting misleading filings and cleaning the register. Data analytics, automation and risk-scoring are increasingly used to flag suspicious behaviour such as anomalous filing patterns, repeated late submissions, false addresses or unusual corporate structures. Technology allows Companies House to intervene earlier, focus on high-risk cases and allocate investigative resources more efficiently. This approach has already generated substantial referrals and has contributed to the identification of significant criminal assets held through UK companies.

In the post-ECCTA world, Companies House is increasingly working with the Insolvency Service and other bodies such as the SFO, NCA and HMRC to tackle economic crime. It reported last June that its new intelligence capabilities had already facilitated approximately 850 intelligence reports to law enforcement agencies. As its verification processes are tightened further, and its tech-driven intelligence capacity becomes broader and more robust, there will be many more such cases. The next phase of reform will involve stricter verification, more robust cleansing of the register, deeper collaboration with enforcement agencies, and more frequent civil and criminal action where required.

Companies House is now aggressively enforcing statutory filing obligations. Following the expansion of its powers under ECCTA, it is escalating persistent or deliberate breaches for criminal prosecution, imposing financial penalties, and using director disqualification more readily. The focus has shifted from passive receipt of filings to active enforcement of compliance.