What is Companies House?

What does Companies House actually do?

It holds the public record of every company in the UK: its name, registered office, directors, shareholders and filed accounts. Anyone can look up any company for free, which is why suppliers, lenders and customers do exactly that before doing business with you.

Registering a company there is what creates it as a legal person, separate from you. From that point the company has obligations of its own, and Companies House is where most of the non-tax ones are met.

It is not HMRC. Companies House deals with the company's existence and public filings; HMRC deals with its tax. A new company is told about both, but the two are separate bodies with separate deadlines and separate penalties.

What does it look like in practice?

A landscaper incorporates on 14 March 2025 and chooses a 31 March year end. Her first accounts cover 14 March 2025 to 31 March 2026, and the first set is due 21 months after incorporation, so by 14 December 2026. Every set after that is due nine months after the year end, so 31 December each year.

Her confirmation statement is due every twelve months from incorporation, with 14 days to file it, and it confirms the directors, shareholders and registered office are still correct. It carries a small annual fee, set on gov.uk.

Both filings are separate from the corporation tax return she sends to HMRC, which has its own deadline, though the accounts she files with each are prepared from the same books.

What do people get wrong?

• —Assuming a dormant company has nothing to file. It still needs accounts and a confirmation statement every year.
• —Missing the accounts deadline. Late filing penalties are automatic, scale with lateness, and double if it happens two years running.
• —Forgetting that the registered office must be a real address where post is opened, because that is where the reminders go.
• —Treating the Companies House deadline and the HMRC deadline as the same thing.