Companies House ID verification: verify before 18 November 2026 or your filings start bouncing

There is a compliance deadline this autumn that will catch more small companies than any tax change this year, simply because it does not look like a tax change: by 18 November 2026, every existing company director and person with significant control (PSC) must have verified their identity with Companies House.

This is the flagship measure of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act. New directors have faced it since 18 November 2025; the twelve-month transition window for everyone already on the register closes this November. At our last count, a worrying share of the directors we meet at new-client meetings have not done it — and several had not heard of it.

What happens if you ignore it

From 18 November 2026, Companies House has confirmed it will reject filings connected to unverified individuals. In practice that means:

• Your confirmation statement bounces — and an overdue confirmation statement is the classic road to a strike-off notice.
• New director appointments cannot complete.
• Acting as an unverified director is an offence, exposing the individual to fines and the company to consequences that read very badly in any due diligence exercise.

None of this is hypothetical enforcement-someday material: the rejection mechanism is automatic. The filing simply does not go through.

What verification actually involves

Mercifully little, if you do it before the rush:

1. GOV.UK One Login route. Create or sign in to a GOV.UK One Login, prove your identity with a passport, driving licence or biometric residence permit — the photo-matching happens in the app — and link the verification to your Companies House record. Most people finish inside ten minutes.
2. Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP) route. An authorised agent — such as an accountant registered as an ACSP — verifies your identity and confirms it to Companies House on your behalf. Useful where documents are awkward or someone is allergic to apps.

Once verified, Companies House issues an 11-character personal code. Guard it like a UTR: you will use it whenever you are appointed to a company, and it links every directorship you hold to one verified identity.

The details that catch people

• PSCs too, not just directors. A shareholder with over 25% who never goes near the filings still has to verify. Husband-and-wife companies routinely have two people in scope, not one.
• Multiple companies, one verification. You verify once as an individual; it covers every appointment.
• The name must match. If your passport says a name the register does not, fix the register first — mismatches are where the ten-minute job becomes a six-week one.
• Corporate directors and overseas officers have their own wrinkles and, frankly, need advice rather than a blog paragraph.

Do it now, not in October

November will be a stampede — every company with a December confirmation statement will discover the requirement at once, and identity-document edge cases (expired passports, name changes, no photo ID) take weeks to resolve, not minutes.

We are walking every client through verification as part of normal service this quarter: a short call, screen-shared, done. If you have companies or co-directors outside our client list, forward them this page — the deadline does not care whose accountant you are.

Unsure whether you or your PSCs are verified? Send an enquiry from this page and we will check your register position and close it out this week.