Companies House: Your Guide to Registration and Maintenance
Importance of Registering with Companies House
Part 1 of 3
What is Companies House?
Companies House is a governmental organisation maintaining records for limited companies and limited liability partnerships in the UK. It regulates the registration and dissolution of these limited companies.
What is their role?
There are currently over 4 million entities registered with Companies House, with more than 500,000 new companies incorporated each year. As such, their principal duty is to acts as an agent monitoring the records and details of limited companies existing in the UK.
Additional duties and responsibilities include:
Keeping track of limited companies and partnerships in the UK;
Incorporating or dissolving companies;
Running checks, examining operations and storing information about companies;
Providing information to the general public and making limited businesses’ operations transparent.
Who needs to register with Companies House?
Limited liability partnerships and limited companies need to register with Companies House.
Sole traders and general partnerships are exempt from registering with Companies House; they do have to register with HMRC for self-assessment.
When do you need to register with Companies House?
In order to start trading, you need to register with Companies House within three months of setting up your business. To register, you can simply visit Companies House website and follow the steps by clicking here.
Three of the following information is required for shareholders and guarantors :
town of birth;
mother’s maiden name;
father’s first name;
telephone number;
national insurance number; or
passport number.
To register online, a registration fee of £12 will need to be paid. Once paid, subject to Companies House being satisfied with all the requirements, registration should take place within 24 hours.
Registration by post will require form IN01 to be completed and a fee of £40 to be paid upon registration by cheque, made out to Companies House. Postal applications usually take between 8 to 10 days.
Accounts
Once registered the first set of accounts must be filed with Companies House within 21 months after registration. Thereafter, annual accounts must be filed within 9 months after the end of the company’s financial year.
It is important to ensure i) the accounts filed detail the correct information, ii) they are filed correctly and iii) filed within the above deadline. The same applies for Corporation Tax. In the event that a filing deadline is missed, an automatic late filing penalty will apply.
The value of the penalty will depend upon the lateness of the filing.
Less than a month late - £150;
1-3 months late - £350;
3-6 months late - £750;
Anything more than 6 months - £1500.
The above sums will double if the accounts are not filed on time in two successive fiscal years.
Author: Zofia Bonarowska -
Author: Zofia Bonarowska -
In partnership with
DISCLAIMER
This article has been written by law students for the sole purpose of providing informative insight. The information in this article is intended for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice, nor should the information be used for the purpose of advising clients. You should seek independent legal advice before relying on any of the information provided in this article.
Sources
Companies House, About us
Companies House, Tell Companies House about changes to your limited company
Companies House, Company registrar’s rules and powers, (GP6 June 2016 Version 3.6)
Companies House, Running a limited company: your responsibilities,
Companies House, Give notice of individual person with significant control (PSC01) (9 February 2018)
Companies Houose, Companies House forms for limited companies (11 October 2018)
Companies House, Companies House Accounts guidance (24 March 2022)
Companies House, Register a statement of satisfaction (MR04) (6 February 2023)
Townley, G., How to avoid a late filing penalty (14 September 2021)
