The government confirmed this week that its long-delayed Companies House accounts reforms are definitely going ahead, and for small business owners who’ve spent the last year worrying about competitors, customers, or ex-employees reading their profit and loss account, there’s genuinely good news buried in it. From April 2028, small and micro companies will be able to opt out of having their P&L account published on the public register. The catch is that the same reform closes the free web-based filing service for good, and that part deserves just as much attention.
This has been a long time coming. Full accounts publication for small companies only became mandatory as part of the wider Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act push, and the backlash was immediate. Business owners argued, reasonably, that forcing every small company to publish detailed profit figures handed a free look at their margins to any competitor, landlord, or supplier who wanted one. The government has now listened, but paired the concession with a much bigger operational change that’s had far less coverage.
What the opt-out actually covers
If your company qualifies as small or micro under the reforms, you’ll be able to choose not to have your profit and loss account appear on the public register from April 2028. It still has to be filed, Companies House, HMRC, and law enforcement will still see it in full, it just won’t be visible to anyone who searches your company on the public website. The government says it will confirm the exact opt-out process closer to the date, so this isn’t something you need to act on yet. It’s worth knowing it’s coming, particularly if commercial sensitivity has been a genuine worry for your business.
The bigger change nobody’s talking about
From the same date, Companies House will close its free web-based filing service and the paper filing route entirely. Every company, however small, will have to file accounts through commercial software using the iXBRL format. Right now, a huge number of the smallest UK companies file accounts themselves through the free WebFiling portal with no software involved at all. That option disappears in April 2028, which means those businesses either need compliant software of their own, or need to hand the job to an accountant who has it.
Two years sounds like plenty of runway, but software providers need time to build and certify tools, and accountants need time to onboard clients who’ve never used commercial filing software before. If you currently file your own accounts through the free service, this is worth flagging to your accountant or bookkeeper now, not in 2027, so nobody is caught out scrambling for software in the final few months. If you’re weighing up new accounting or filing software as part of this shift, BuildApps can help assess what actually fits a business your size rather than over-buying enterprise tools you won’t use.
What to do between now and 2028
Don’t opt in to anything yet. The opt-out mechanism isn’t live and won’t be for a while, so there’s no form to fill in today. Just note the date and revisit it in 2027.
Ask your accountant what software they use for filing. If they already file through commercial software on your behalf, you’re largely covered. If you file yourself through the free portal, that’s the conversation to have early.
Keep an eye on any compliance documentation that references your current filing method. If you’ve got supplier or lender agreements that reference your public accounts, Smallprint has templates worth reviewing once the opt-out process is confirmed, so your paperwork matches what’s actually public.
The takeaway
This is a genuine win for small business privacy, but it comes bundled with the end of free, software-free accounts filing. The privacy part needs nothing from you right now. The software part is the one worth starting a conversation about before 2028 arrives and everyone tries to sort it out at once.
