Companies House deadlines

Two different bodies, two different deadlines

The single biggest source of confusion for new directors is thinking Companies House and HMRC are the same organisation. They are not. Companies House maintains the public register of companies. HMRC collects tax. You file accounts with both, on different deadlines, in different formats.

The accounts you file at Companies House are usually abbreviated, showing far less detail, and they go on the public record where anybody can read them. The accounts you file with HMRC go with your corporation tax return, show everything, and are private.

Filing one does not satisfy the other. A director who files at Companies House and assumes HMRC has been dealt with is heading for a penalty, and the reverse is equally true.

Annual accounts: 9 months

For a private limited company, accounts must reach Companies House within 9 months of the financial year end. A company with a 31 March 2026 year end must file by 31 December 2026. A company with a 31 December 2026 year end must file by 30 September 2027.

Public companies get 6 months rather than 9, which is a genuine trap for anybody who converts a private company to a plc without adjusting their timetable.

Note how closely this sits with the corporation tax payment date of 9 months and 1 day. The two deadlines are effectively the same day, which is convenient because the same accounts feed both, but it also means everything lands at once if you leave it late.

First accounts: 21 months

A company's very first accounts get a different rule. They are due 21 months from the date of incorporation rather than 9 months from the year end.

Take a company incorporated on 12 June 2025. Companies House sets its first accounting reference date as 30 June 2026, giving a first period of just over 12 months. The first accounts are due 21 months after 12 June 2025, which is 12 March 2027.

Work that out carefully, because it is not intuitive and the deadline is earlier than the 9 month rule would suggest if you measure from the year end. Nine months from 30 June 2026 would be 31 March 2027, but the actual deadline is 12 March 2027, nineteen days earlier.

The confirmation statement

The confirmation statement is not accounts. It is a short filing confirming that the information on the public register is still correct, covering the registered office, directors, shareholders, share capital and people with significant control.

It is due within 14 days of the end of each review period. The review period runs for 12 months from incorporation, or from the date of your last statement. So a company incorporated on 12 June has a review period ending 11 June each year and a filing deadline of 25 June.

Fourteen days is short, and there is no penalty in pounds for missing it, which lulls people into treating it as unimportant. That is a mistake. Failing to file is a criminal offence for the directors, and in practice Companies House responds by beginning the process of striking the company off the register.

Late filing penalties for accounts

These are fixed, automatic and applied without discretion. For a private company, up to 1 month late costs £150. Between 1 and 3 months costs £375. Between 3 and 6 months costs £750. More than 6 months costs £1,500.

Public companies pay £750, £1,500, £3,000 and £7,500 for the same bands.

The penalty doubles if the accounts were also filed late in the previous financial year. So a private company late twice in a row by four months pays £1,500 rather than £750.

Companies House appeals succeed only in genuinely exceptional circumstances, such as a fire destroying records or a serious illness affecting the only person able to file. Being busy, having an unhelpful accountant, or not receiving a reminder are all rejected as a matter of course.

What happens if you simply never file

Companies House does not chase indefinitely. If accounts and confirmation statements stop arriving, it assumes the company is no longer carrying on business and begins compulsory strike off.

A notice appears in the Gazette, and if nobody objects the company is dissolved a couple of months later. At that point any assets still held by the company, including money in the bank, pass to the Crown under the rules on bona vacantia. Recovering them means applying to restore the company, which is slow and expensive.

Directors also risk prosecution personally, and persistent failure can lead to disqualification. These are not theoretical outcomes. Companies House pursues them routinely.

Identity verification

Since 18 November 2025, identity verification has been part of the picture. Anybody forming a new company, or being appointed as a director or an LLP member, must verify their identity first.

For people already in place before that date, verification is being phased in across a 12 month transition. Directors and LLP members must verify when they file their next confirmation statement, which means most existing companies deal with it at some point during 2026. People with significant control who are not also directors verify within a window around their birth month.

The practical point is that this turns the confirmation statement from a two minute formality into something that needs preparing in advance. If a director has not verified and obtained their personal code, the statement cannot be filed, and the 14 day window disappears very quickly while somebody works out how to prove who they are.

Verification is done either directly through GOV.UK One Login or through an authorised corporate service provider such as an accountant. Doing it well ahead of the confirmation statement date rather than on the day is the only sensible approach.

Changes still coming

Companies House reform is not finished. Filing of accounts is moving towards commercial software only, which will end the option of using the web filing service or sending paper. Small and micro companies will also lose the ability to file abridged accounts, and will have to file a profit and loss account on the public record.

That second change matters commercially rather than administratively. Turnover and profit figures that have always been private for small companies will become visible to competitors, customers and suppliers. It is worth knowing it is coming rather than discovering it when the accounts appear.

Changing your year end

You can shorten your accounting reference period as often as you like. You can normally only extend it once every 5 years, and never beyond 18 months.

An important detail is that you cannot change a period after the filing deadline for it has already passed. Companies sometimes try to shorten a year end as a way of buying time when accounts are running late, and it does not work in that direction. Shortening a period actually brings the deadline forward in many cases, giving you less time rather than more.

Any change should be notified before the current deadline, and every downstream date needs recalculating afterwards, including the corporation tax payment date.

A workable timetable

Aim to have the accounts finished within 4 months of the year end. That gives 5 months of slack before the Companies House deadline and comfortably clears the corporation tax payment date at 9 months and 1 day.

Put the confirmation statement date in the calendar with a reminder a month ahead, not a fortnight, so that any identity verification can be sorted out first. Keep the registered office details current, because Companies House correspondence goes there and a missed reminder is not a defence.

Above all, treat the Companies House deadline as separate from the tax one. They land at almost the same time, and the temptation is to think of them as a single job. They are two filings to two organisations, and only one of them will fine you £1,500 without ever discussing it.

The other filings with their own clocks

Accounts and the confirmation statement are the two annual obligations, but several event driven filings carry short deadlines of their own and they are easy to overlook because they arrive unpredictably.

Appointing or removing a director must be notified within 14 days. A change of registered office must be notified within 14 days. A change to a director’s personal details, such as a new address, is also 14 days. Allotting new shares requires a return within one month. Creating a charge over company assets, typically when you take a loan secured on the business, must be registered within 21 days, and missing that one can make the security void against a liquidator, which is a serious matter for the lender as well as the company.

Changes to people with significant control must be notified within 14 days of the company becoming aware, with a further 14 days to update the register. Given how often small companies restructure their shareholdings without telling anybody, this is a common gap.

Dormant companies still have deadlines

A dormant company, meaning one that has had no significant accounting transactions in the period, still files. Dormant accounts are short and can be filed easily, but they are due on exactly the same 9 month deadline and attract exactly the same penalties if late.

The confirmation statement is also still required every year. People frequently form a company, never trade through it, and assume it can simply be ignored. Two years later there are penalties outstanding and a strike off notice in the Gazette.

If you genuinely have no use for a company, closing it properly through a strike off application costs a small fee and takes a few months. That is far cheaper than leaving it to accumulate penalties, and it protects the directors from any question of persistent non compliance appearing against their names on the public record.

A worked example of the first year

Harper Studios Limited is incorporated on 3 September 2025. Companies House sets its first accounting reference date as 30 September 2026.

Its first accounts are due 21 months from incorporation, so by 3 June 2027. Its first confirmation statement covers a review period ending 2 September 2026 and must be filed by 16 September 2026, which is well before any accounts are due. Corporation tax for the first accounting period is due 9 months and 1 day after that period ends.

Notice that the confirmation statement comes first, roughly a year after formation and long before anybody is thinking about accounts. It is the deadline new companies miss most often.

Frequently asked questions