Companies House are now requiring all directors and Persons with Significant Control (PSC) to be ID checked using new IDV rules.

An individual gets their ID checked and receives a “personal code” for use at Companies House. This code then needs to be registered with Companies House in respect of that individual, for every company they are involved with and for every role within that company.

This is required at incorporation for all new companies.

Starting from 18th November 2025 every Director and PSC of an existing company, has been given a time slot of approx. 14 days to supply their code to Companies House for each specific company and role, within the following 12 months.  Codes can not be supplied earlier.  Those involved with many companies may have many time slots!

Directors time slots coincide with the due date for filing the annual confirmation statement which can not be filed without all the Directors codes being submitted.

Those who are both Director and PSC of a company will have a time slot for their roll as a PSC of that company that commences one day later than that for them as a Director of that company.  But only if Companies House have recognised that they are the same person, which may not necessarily be the case.

Those who are a PSC of the company, but not a Director will have a time slot at the beginning of their month of birth.

Once this exercise is complete then the plan is for it to become compulsory to use a directors ID code to submit accounts to Companies House.

Obtaining Codes

There are currently three possible routes to complete the IDV check and get your code –
a) Use GOV.UK One Login
b) Visit a relevant post office, OR
c) Use an ACSP who is qualified to perform this task.

We understand the Post Office is the most reliable.

These ID checks may be performed free of charge at GOV.UK One Login or at the Post office, others may charge a fee.

You will need a unique e-mail address to obtain your code i.e. you can not share an e-mail with another doing their ID check, or reuse for a second check.

Codes obtained via GOV.UK One Login can be retrieved by revisiting your GOV.UK One Login account, but those obtained via the Post Office are only advised once to the specified e-mail address.  If you can not find your code, then you may have to get a new ID check done.

Keep your ID code safe as it can be used again and again, for each role and each company.

Please beware scammers trying to collect your ID info or your new personal ID code or just charging you to forward you to HMRC.

For more details see https://www.gov.uk/guidance/verify-your-identity-for-companies-house

Registering Codes

Codes for Directors are registered during the annual Confirmation Statement preparation and submission.  So please provide your code to whomever is preparing this return for your company.

If the time sot for a PSC is open when the confirmation statement is prepared, then Companies House will direct the preparer to submit codes for PSC’s at that time.

If submitting codes for PSC’s at a different time, then Companies House have a separate Provide Identity Verification Details for a PSC service.

Extensions to the time slots are available in exceptional circumstances.

When registering codes there can be many reasons why the code may not match or be initially rejected.  Companies House offer some optional tick boxes e.g. married name.  However the most common is missing middle names.  Companies House records never required middle names to be registered but will reject a code if the middle names do not match.  We therefore recommend checking and updating Companies House records for errors or missing middle names etc. before registering codes.