If you are a director of your own limited company, you now have to verify your identity with Companies House and give an 11 character personal code on your next confirmation statement. If you are also a person with significant control, which most owner directors are, you have a second and completely separate deadline of 14 days.
Two obligations, two mechanisms, two dates. That is the part that catches people out, and it is the part the guidance is quietest about. It is also one more piece of annual admin on a pile that keeps growing, which is worth weighing if you are already asking whether a limited company is still the right structure.
What changed, and when
Identity verification became a legal requirement on 18 November 2025. Companies House is explicit that this date is not itself a deadline: it started a 12 month transition period so that companies could get their directors and PSCs verified by their own due dates. That transition runs out in November 2026.
So if you have been assuming there is a single national cut-off you need to diarise, there is not. Your deadline depends on your company’s own filing dates and, if you are a PSC, on your date of birth. Companies House sets out when you need to verify in full.
Who has to verify their identity
For a typical owner-managed limited company, identity verification reaches everyone at the top of it. Directors must verify. People with significant control must verify. Anyone filing at Companies House on the company’s behalf must verify.
Most people running their own company are both a director and a PSC of that same company. If that is you, you are not one person with one obligation. You are one person wearing two hats, and each hat has its own requirement.
When your deadline actually is
This is the table worth keeping. Find the row that describes you.
| Your role | When you must provide your code | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Director | As part of the company’s next confirmation statement, and for each company you are a director of | In the confirmation statement filing |
| PSC who is also a director of the same company | Within 14 days, starting the day after the company’s confirmation statement date | The PSC verification service |
| PSC who is not a director of that company | The first 14 days of your birth month. Born on 22 January, your window opens on 1 January | The PSC verification service |
| Became a PSC after 18 November 2025 | When you are first added to the register, or within 14 days of being added | The PSC verification service |
| Registering a brand new company | At registration. Every director’s code is needed as part of the filing | In the incorporation filing |
You can check the dates of your own 14 day period on the Companies House register.
The trap: you probably have two
If you are both a director and a PSC of your own company, you have to provide your personal code twice, through two different routes. Once in the confirmation statement, as a director. Once through the PSC service, as a PSC. Same code, same person, two filings.
And there is a detail inside that which is easy to get wrong. If your company files its confirmation statement early, your 14 day PSC window does not move. It is still calculated from the company’s confirmation statement date, not from the day you happened to file. Filing early to get it out of the way does not buy you extra time on the PSC side, and it can mean the window opens and closes while you think the job is already done.
How to verify your identity
There are two routes. Most directors will find the first one quicker.
Yourself, through GOV.UK One Login. You will need one of: a biometric passport from any country, a UK photo driving licence (full or provisional), a UK biometric residence permit, a UK biometric residence card, or a UK Frontier Worker permit. You will also need your current address and the year you moved in. Companies House explains the process for verifying your identity, and it can also be done in person at a Post Office.
Through an authorised agent. An Authorised Corporate Service Provider, or ACSP, which is usually an accountant, solicitor or formation agent, can carry out identity verification for its clients.
One practical warning that causes real problems in couple-run companies: an email address can only be used once to verify an identity. If two directors share an inbox, the second person needs their own email address for GOV.UK One Login before they can start.
Once verified you get your personal code, an 11 character code that belongs to you rather than to any company. Sign in to Companies House and go to Manage account to find it. Keep it somewhere you can get at, because you will need it again for every company you are involved with and at every future filing that asks for it.
What happens if you do not verify
Companies House is blunt about this. If you do not comply with the verification requirements on time, you may be committing an offence. If you carry on acting as a director after your deadline without complying, you will be committing an offence. The company itself and all of its directors may also be committing an offence.
The consequences it lists are prosecution and a fine through the courts, or a financial penalty.
Read that middle sentence again, because it is the one worth taking seriously in a company with more than one director. One person who has not got round to verifying does not just create a problem for themselves. It exposes the company and every other director alongside them.
What to do this week
Identity verification is not difficult and the list is short. It just has to actually happen, and the date it has to happen by is your own rather than a national one.
- Find your company’s confirmation statement date on the Companies House register. That date drives everything else.
- Verify yourself through GOV.UK One Login. Fifteen minutes with your passport or driving licence in front of you.
- Save your 11 character personal code somewhere you will find it again.
- Work out whether you are a PSC as well as a director. If you own or control more than 25% of your own company, you almost certainly are.
- If you are both, diarise the 14 day PSC window from the day after your confirmation statement date, and remember that filing early does not move it.
- Check that every other director and PSC has done the same. Their omission is your problem too.
While you are in compliance mode, it is worth knowing that the director Self Assessment rules changed for 2025/26 as well, and that one carries its own penalty for getting it wrong.
If you are not sure whether your directors and PSCs are verified, or when your 14 day window opens, send us your company number and we will check the register and tell you where you stand. It takes us a couple of minutes and it is a great deal cheaper than a financial penalty.
If your current accountant has not mentioned any of this to you, that is worth noticing in itself. It is the kind of thing that should have arrived in your inbox months ago, and there is a guide to how switching accountants works if it has prompted a bigger question.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Identity verification became a legal requirement on 18 November 2025. As a director you provide your Companies House personal code as part of your company’s next confirmation statement, and you do this for each company you are a director of.
It is an 11 character code issued to you once you have verified your identity. It is personal to you rather than to any company, so you use the same code for every company you are involved with.
A PSC has a 14 day window. If you are also a director of the same company it starts the day after the company’s confirmation statement date. If you are a PSC but not a director of that company, it is the first 14 days of your birth month.
Companies House says you may be committing an offence, and that the company and all its directors may be committing an offence too. You may face prosecution and a fine through the courts, or a financial penalty.
An Authorised Corporate Service Provider, also called a Companies House authorised agent, can verify clients. Otherwise you verify yourself through GOV.UK One Login with photo ID, which for most directors is the quicker route.