For most directors, the annual confirmation statement has been one of the more forgettable items in the compliance calendar, a short filing that confirms the company’s details remain correct. That quiet routine has changed. Under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, identity verification at Companies House became a legal requirement from 18 November 2025, and the confirmation statement is now the moment at which many directors and people with significant control will be expected to prove who they are. If you run a UK company, this affects you directly, and the time to understand it is before your filing falls due rather than after.
What the new identity verification rules require
Identity verification is exactly what it sounds like: a process that ties a real, verified person to the roles they hold on the public register. It applies to directors, to members of limited liability partnerships, and to people with significant control, the individuals who ultimately own or control a company. The requirement was introduced to address a long-standing weakness in the register, namely that almost anyone could be named as a director without any check that they existed or had consented. By confirming identity, Companies House aims to make the register more reliable and to make it harder to misuse companies for fraud.
There are two ways to complete the process. You can verify directly with Companies House through the GOV.UK One Login service, using identity documents such as a passport or driving licence, or you can verify indirectly through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider, an accountant, solicitor or company formation agent who is supervised for anti-money laundering purposes and authorised to carry out the check on your behalf. Whichever route you choose, the verification produces a personal code that becomes linked to you, and that code then needs to be reflected in the company’s filings. The regime applies to companies across the United Kingdom, because company law and the operation of Companies House are matters that sit at Westminster rather than with the devolved administrations.
When you need to act, and what happens if you do not
The date that matters most depends on your situation. Anyone appointed as a new director or person with significant control on or after 18 November 2025 must verify their identity at the point of appointment. For the millions of people already on the register, that date marked the start of a transition period of roughly twelve months, during which existing directors and PSCs are expected to verify by the time their company files its first confirmation statement after it. In practice that means your personal deadline could arrive at almost any point in the year, so it is worth checking when your confirmation statement is due rather than assuming you have until late 2026. As the transition period closes, Companies House has indicated that it will move from encouraging verification to actively enforcing it.
The consequences of leaving this undone are not trivial. Filing certain documents, or continuing to act, without the required verification can be a criminal offence, and Companies House has the power to impose civil financial penalties on individuals and companies that do not comply. The registrar can also annotate the public record to show that an individual is unverified, which is hardly the impression most directors want to give to lenders, customers or counterparties carrying out due diligence. Documents delivered by disqualified directors are now rejected, and in the most serious cases a company that fails to bring itself into line risks being struck from the register altogether. None of this is intended as a reason to panic, but it is a reason to treat the requirement as a real obligation rather than an optional formality.
It is also worth knowing that identity verification is one part of a wider set of changes to how companies report. Companies House is moving towards software-only filing of accounts, the option to file abridged accounts is being removed, and smaller companies will in time be required to file a profit and loss account, with those accounts changes scheduled to take effect from April 2027. Taken together, these reforms point in a single direction, which is greater transparency about who stands behind a company and how it is performing.
Why this matters most when a company is under pressure
For a healthy, well-run company, verification is an administrative task to be completed and forgotten. The picture is more pointed for directors of a business that is struggling. One of the stated aims of these reforms is to make it harder to misuse the dissolution process, the practice of quietly dissolving a company to walk away from its debts and start again. The register is becoming a more accurate record of who was responsible for what, and Companies House is now better able to block disqualified directors from acting. If your company is in difficulty, allowing your filings to lapse or your details to drift out of date can compound the problem at exactly the moment when accuracy and good conduct count.
It is important to be clear about what striking off does and does not achieve. Dissolving a company does not extinguish personal guarantees, it does not clear an overdrawn director’s loan account, and it does not prevent a creditor or, in some cases, the authorities from applying to restore the company so that its affairs can be examined. A company under genuine financial strain is usually better served by keeping its statutory record in order and taking proper advice on its options, which may include negotiating with creditors, exploring a rescue, or arranging an orderly closure, than by hoping the problem can be made to disappear from the register.
Identity verification, then, is not simply a box-ticking exercise imposed from above. It is part of a shift towards a register that can be trusted, and it places a modest but real duty on every director to keep their own position straight. The practical step is simple enough: find out when your confirmation statement is next due, decide whether you will verify directly or through an authorised provider, and complete the process in good time. If your company is also facing financial difficulty, this is a sensible moment to take advice from a licensed insolvency practitioner such as McTear Williams & Wood about the wider position, so that any decisions you make are properly informed. This article is general information about a developing area of company law and is not a substitute for advice on your own circumstances.
