Companies House identity verification became a legal requirement on 18 November 2025, and the UK is now roughly seven months into the 12-month transition period that ends on 17 November 2026. If you’re a director, or a person with significant control (PSC) in a UK limited company, this is the kind of admin task that’s easy to forget about until it suddenly isn’t — because once your deadline passes, you simply cannot file your confirmation statement.
Who needs to act, and by when
The rules apply differently depending on your role. Existing directors and PSCs — anyone already in post — must verify their identity by the time their company’s next confirmation statement is due, with a hard backstop of 17 November 2026 for everyone still outstanding. New directors appointed from 18 November 2025 onwards must verify before their appointment can even be filed. PSCs who aren’t directors have a tighter window: 14 days from an “appointed day” set in law, which for most non-director PSCs starts on the first day of their birth month.
In practice, this means many SME directors will hit their deadline far sooner than the November backstop, simply because their confirmation statement falls due earlier in the year.
Why this matters more than it sounds
This isn’t a box-ticking formality you can quietly let slide. If you fail to verify your identity when required, Companies House will reject your confirmation statement. Persistent non-compliance is a criminal offence, and the penalties escalate from there — fines of up to £5,000, director disqualification, and ultimately the company being struck off the register entirely.
For a small business, a struck-off company can mean frozen bank accounts, voided contracts, and a scramble to restore the company that costs far more time and money than the verification itself ever would have.
Verification itself isn’t onerous — it’s done online via GOV.UK One Login, in person at a Post Office, or through an authorised corporate service provider, using a passport or driving licence. Most people complete it in under 15 minutes. The risk isn’t the process; it’s simply forgetting it exists until your confirmation statement is rejected.
There’s also a knock-on effect worth flagging for multi-director businesses: verification status sits against each individual, not the company as a whole. That means a co-director who left day-to-day operations to you, or a PSC who’s a family member or investor with little involvement in running the business, can just as easily be the person who causes a filing to bounce. It’s worth a direct message to every director and PSC on your register now, rather than assuming someone else has already mentioned it to them.
What to do this week
Check your company’s confirmation statement date. This tells you your real deadline, which may be months ahead of the November 2026 backstop. It’s listed on the Companies House register and in your company’s own records.
Verify every director and PSC, not just yourself. A confirmation statement is rejected if any required person hasn’t verified — so it only takes one overlooked colleague or co-director to block the whole filing.
Get your records in order alongside it. Identity verification is a good prompt to check the rest of your statutory paperwork — registers of PSCs, director service agreements, and shareholder records — is accurate and current. Smallprint provides ready-to-use legal templates that make tidying up this kind of company admin straightforward, without needing to brief a solicitor for routine document upkeep.
The takeaway
This deadline won’t announce itself with urgency until it’s too late to act on. Pull up your confirmation statement date this week, verify everyone who needs it, and treat it as done — rather than something to revisit when Companies House rejects a filing and your options have narrowed.
