Companies House Late Filing Penalties 2026 (£150–£1,500): Deadlines Guide

Every UK limited company has a small set of recurring Companies House obligations: file annual accounts, file a confirmation statement, and keep the public register accurate. Miss the accounts deadline and the penalty is automatic and escalating; miss the confirmation statement and the company can be struck off. This guide pulls together every Companies House deadline, the exact penalty schedule, and the changes the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act brings — written for accountants managing a portfolio of clients.

The two deadlines every company has

Two filings drive almost all Companies House compliance work:

• Annual accounts — a financial statement for each accounting period, filed after the accounting reference date (ARD).
• Confirmation statement (CS01) — an annual check that the information Companies House holds (registered office, directors, PSCs, SIC codes, shareholders) is correct.

They are separate filings with separate deadlines and separate consequences. A company can be fully up to date on accounts and still face strike-off for a missed confirmation statement.

Annual accounts deadlines

The accounts filing deadline is measured from the accounting reference date — the last day of the company's financial year, which by default is the anniversary of the end of the month of incorporation.

If you shorten the accounting period, the deadline is the later of the normal deadline or 3 months from the date of the change notice. Extensions are possible only in limited circumstances (for example, events outside the company's control) and must be applied for before the deadline passes.

The late filing penalty schedule

Late filing penalties for accounts are automatic — there is no warning and no discretion at the point they are issued. The amount depends on how late the accounts are and whether the company is private or public.

The penalty doubles if accounts are filed late in two consecutive financial years. So a private company that files more than six months late two years running pays £3,000 the second year. Penalties are issued to the company, but the practical and reputational fallout lands on the accountant.

Confirmation statement deadlines

The confirmation statement covers a 12-month review period. The first review period starts on the date of incorporation; each subsequent period starts the day after the last statement's review-period end. The statement must be filed within 14 days of the end of the review period.

There is no automatic financial penalty for a late confirmation statement. The risk is more serious: Companies House can begin compulsory strike-off proceedings if a company persistently fails to confirm. A struck-off company's assets pass to the Crown (bona vacantia), and its directors can face disqualification. Filing the statement is cheap and quick; the consequence of ignoring it is existential.

Identity verification under the ECCT Act

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCT) introduced mandatory identity verification for company directors, people with significant control (PSCs), and those filing on a company's behalf. Verification is being rolled out in phases through 2025 and 2026, and can be completed directly via GOV.UK One Login or through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP) — a route many accountancy firms have registered for so they can verify clients themselves.

The PSC angle is the one most firms miss: directors usually get verified because they are named in the engagement, but PSCs who are not directors — family-trust PSCs, non-director shareholders — are easy to overlook. The Act also moves Companies House towards software-only accounts filing and gives the registrar stronger powers to query and reject filings.

Strike-off and restoration

Strike-off comes in two forms: voluntary (a DS01 application by the directors to dissolve a company that is no longer needed) and compulsory (the registrar dissolves a company for non-compliance). A company struck off in error or still trading can be restored — administratively where it was dissolved by the registrar within the last six years, or by court order in other cases. Restoration is slow and costly, which is why preventing an unintended strike-off is far cheaper than reversing one.

How accountants stay on top of it across a portfolio

The hard part is not understanding any single deadline — it is that every client has a different ARD and a different confirmation-statement review period, so the dates are scattered across the year with no shared pattern. Relying on the Companies House reminder email is risky: for accounts it arrives about a month before the deadline, and for confirmation statements it often arrives on or near the due date, leaving no time to act. A monitoring tool that reads each client's real dates from the Companies House register and flags them well in advance removes the single-point-of-failure that spreadsheets create.

Guides in this series

This guide is the hub for our detailed Companies House articles. Each one goes deeper on a specific deadline or process:

Detailed guides in this series are publishing through 2026 — check back soon, or use the deadline checker below in the meantime.

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This is general information, not advice — check the current GOV.UK guidance, or a client's specific position with a qualified accountant, before acting.
Sources
GOV.UK — Accounts and tax returns for private limited companies: https://www.gov.uk/prepare-file-annual-accounts-for-limited-company
GOV.UK — Confirmation statement: https://www.gov.uk/file-your-confirmation-statement-with-companies-house
GOV.UK — Late filing penalties: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/late-filing-penalties
Companies House — Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act: changes to UK company law: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/companies-house