Companies House ID Verification - Your Deadline Isn't 18th November

Every director of a UK limited company has to verify their identity with Companies House. The date everyone quotes is November, but yours is set by your own confirmation statement - And for a lot of companies that has already been and gone.

• 18 November 2025 was a start date, not a deadline. It opened a 12-month transition period, and Companies House said so in plain terms.

• Your real deadline is your next confirmation statement. The filing will not go through without a personal code for every director.

• Director and owner are two separate deadlines. If you are both, the code has to be provided twice.

• One unverified director blocks the whole company. Nothing gets filed until the code is in.

The date everyone quotes is not your date

18 November 2025 was the day identity verification became a legal requirement. Companies House was unusually clear that this was not a deadline. It was the start of a 12-month transition period.

Your own deadline is set by your company's confirmation statement, the yearly filing that confirms who runs and owns the business. Every director has to provide a Companies House personal code as part of it - The reference you get once verification is done.

That date is different for every company. A construction firm filing in February and an online retailer filing in September have completely different deadlines, and neither of them is 18 November.

What this means for you: Your confirmation statement date is the only date that matters, and it is not the one in the headlines.

If you own the company as well as run it, that is two deadlines

In most small companies the same person is the director and the person with significant control, which is Companies House language for the owner. Those are two separate roles on the register and each carries its own deadline.

As a director, the code goes in with the confirmation statement. As the owner, it goes through a separate Companies House service called "Provide identity verification details for a PSC". Same code, different place, and its own 14-day window starting the day after the confirmation statement date.

Filing early does not help. Companies House says the 14-day window does not move just because the statement went in ahead of time.

What this means for you: Getting the confirmation statement filed does not finish the job if you also own the company.

What happens when a director has not verified

The company cannot file its confirmation statement. Not late, not with a note attached - It is blocked until every director has handed over a code.

One unverified director in a four-person firm stops all four of them.

Companies House is blunt about the rest. Missing the requirement is an offence, it carries a financial penalty, and you cannot make any filings for the company or start a new one until it is dealt with.

What this means for you: One person's unfinished admin can freeze the entire company's filing position.

Where we come in

We file confirmation statements for our clients as part of the fixed monthly fee, so the date sits on our calendar rather than yours. Where a director on the register has not verified, you hear about it before the filing is due, not after it bounces.

Verifying your own identity is something you can do directly with Companies House through GOV.UK One Login. We are not going to dress a government form up as a service.

General information, not advice. Checked against Companies House guidance at publication. Identity verification for people who file at Companies House has already been pushed back once and is not expected before November 2027, so this area is still moving. Call us on 01793 677 644.