File them now. A late set of accounts brings an automatic penalty from Companies House, on a fixed scale that starts at £150 and reaches £1,500. Nobody has to decide to charge you. The penalty notice is generated because the deadline passed.
That is the important difference from a late confirmation statement, where there is no fixed fine and the real risk is strike off. Accounts are the opposite way round. The fine is certain, it is on a published scale, and it doubles if you do this two years running.
When your accounts are due
For an established private limited company, you have 9 months from your accounting reference date to deliver accounts to Companies House. Your accounting reference date is normally the anniversary of the last day of the month you incorporated in.
First accounts work differently and catch people out. If your first accounting period runs longer than 12 months, which it usually does, you have 21 months from the date of incorporation, or 3 months from your accounting reference date, whichever gives you longer.
You do not have to work any of this out from memory. Look your company up on the Companies House register and the next accounts due date is stated on the overview page. It is free, it takes a minute, and it is worth doing before you read the rest of this, because which penalty band you are in depends on it.
If the date has already gone, the register will show the accounts as overdue. That marker is public, so your bank, a credit reference agency and anyone running a check before they sign with you can all see it, and it stays there until you file.
The late filing penalty ladder
These are the penalties for a private company or LLP, as published by Companies House in its late filing penalties guidance.
| How late the accounts are | Penalty | If you were late last year too |
|---|---|---|
| Not more than 1 month | £150 | £300 |
| More than 1 month but not more than 3 months | £375 | £750 |
| More than 3 months but not more than 6 months | £750 | £1,500 |
| More than 6 months | £1,500 | £3,000 |
Public companies pay considerably more at every stage, running from £750 up to £7,500, but most people reading this will be a private limited company.
Notice that these are cliffs, not a daily rate. Crossing from one month late to one month and a day costs you an extra £225 in a single day. If you are anywhere near a band boundary, the filing is worth doing this week rather than next.
When the penalty doubles
If your accounts are filed late in two successive financial years, the penalty is doubled. That is the right hand column in the table above, and it is the difference between a £150 irritation and a £3,000 problem.
This is the part that turns a bad year into an expensive one, and it catches a very predictable group of people. A company that fell behind once is usually behind for a reason that has not gone away: the bookkeeping is not up to date, the records are scattered, or nobody owns the deadline. Left alone, the same thing happens the following year, at twice the price.
If you are late this year, the single most valuable thing you can do after filing is put the next deadline somewhere it cannot be missed.
Can you appeal a late filing penalty?
You can appeal, but you should go in with realistic expectations. Companies House will only cancel a penalty in genuinely exceptional circumstances, and the test is whether something happened that was outside your control and prevented the filing.
Reasons that do not usually succeed, because they are treated as your responsibility rather than an exceptional event:
- Your accountant was late, or you had changed accountants
- You did not know about the deadline, or did not receive a reminder
- The company is dormant or was not trading
- You could not afford to pay the accountancy fees in time
- The paperwork was harder to pull together than you expected
Dormancy deserves its own line, because it is the most common misunderstanding we see. A dormant company still has to file accounts. Dormant accounts are short and simple, but "there was nothing to report" is not a defence for failing to report it.
For most people the honest answer is that the penalty will stand, and the effort is better spent making sure it does not happen again next year at double the rate.
Extensions, and why yours may be too late
Companies House can extend your filing deadline, but only if you apply before the deadline passes. That is the whole ball game. Once the date has gone, there is no extension available, only a penalty.
An extension needs a reason outside your control. The example Companies House itself gives is a fire destroying company records before the filing deadline. You also may not be eligible if you have already extended a deadline or shortened your accounting period.
So if you are reading this before your deadline and you can see you are not going to make it, stop and apply now. If you are reading it afterwards, skip this section: it is not a route that is open to you any more.
The penalty is not the worst part
The fine is the visible cost. Three other things are running alongside it.
The company can be struck off. Companies House is direct about this: you can be fined and your company struck off the register if you do not send your accounts. Strike off means the company ceases to exist, the bank account is frozen, and any assets it still holds pass to the Crown.
Directors are personally exposed. Filing accounts is a director's legal duty, not the company's inconvenience. Directors can be prosecuted and fined personally for failing to file, and a sustained pattern of it is the kind of thing that supports disqualification proceedings. The penalty is billed to the company; the obligation sits with you.
Corporation Tax is a separate deadline with separate penalties. Your CT600 goes to HMRC, not Companies House, and it runs on its own clock, as does the payment. If VAT is in the picture too, the same pattern applies: falling behind on one filing usually means falling behind on others. A company that is late with its accounts is very often late with its Corporation Tax too, and HMRC charges for that separately. Sorting the accounts without checking the tax position leaves half the problem in place.
There is also the quiet one. An overdue filing is flagged on the public register, where your bank, your credit reference agencies, a prospective client running a check and a supplier setting your payment terms can all see it.
A rejected filing does not stop the clock
Accounts count as delivered when Companies House accepts them, not when you send them. If a submission is rejected for an error and you correct and resubmit after the deadline, it is the later date that counts.
This matters most to people filing in the last few days before a deadline, which is exactly when people file. Leave yourself room for one rejection.
What to do today
- Look up your company on the Companies House register and find the accounts due date. Work out which penalty band you are currently in.
- If a band boundary is close, treat the filing as this week's job. A few days can be worth £225 or more.
- Get the accounts filed as quickly as accuracy allows. Do not file something you know to be wrong to beat a band: an amended set later is its own problem.
- Check your Corporation Tax position at the same time. The two deadlines are different and being late on one usually means being late on the other.
- Check whether last year was also filed late. If it was, you are in doubling territory and the numbers above are the wrong ones.
- Put next year's deadline somewhere it will actually be seen, or hand it to someone whose job it becomes.
If you have had a penalty notice and are not sure how bad the position is, send us your company number and the letter. We will tell you which band you are in, whether the doubling applies, what the Corporation Tax position looks like alongside it, and what it takes to clear the lot. If it turns out you are fine, we will tell you that too.
And if this has happened because nobody was watching the dates on your behalf, that is worth fixing rather than repeating. Filing deadlines should never reach you as a surprise. Here is how switching accountants works if it has come to that.
Frequently Asked Questions
For a private limited company or LLP the penalty is £150 if the accounts are not more than a month late, £375 for more than one month but not more than three, £750 for more than three months but not more than six, and £1,500 for more than six months. Public companies pay more at every stage. The penalty is automatic once the deadline passes.
Yes. If accounts are filed late in two successive financial years the penalty is doubled, so £150 becomes £300 and £1,500 becomes £3,000. This is why fixing the underlying process matters more than the first fine.
You can appeal, but penalties are only cancelled in genuinely exceptional circumstances where something outside your control prevented the filing. An accountant being late, not knowing the deadline, the company being dormant, or not being able to afford fees are not usually accepted.
No. An extension has to be applied for before the filing deadline passes. Once the deadline has gone there is no extension available, only the penalty. Extensions also require a reason outside your control, and you may not be eligible if you have already extended or shortened your accounting period.
Yes. A dormant company still has to deliver accounts to Companies House, and being dormant is not a defence against a late filing penalty. Dormant accounts are short and straightforward, but they still have to be filed on time.
Yes. Companies House states that you can be fined and your company struck off the register if you do not send your accounts. Directors can also be prosecuted and fined personally, because filing is a director's legal duty.
An established private limited company has 9 months from its accounting reference date. First accounts are different: if the first period is longer than 12 months you have 21 months from incorporation, or 3 months from the accounting reference date, whichever is longer. Your exact date is shown on the Companies House register.