Companies House have made Identification verification for Directors, LLP partners and PSCs mandatory from 18th November 2025. Note in this context PSC is “Person with Significant Control”, and should not be confused with the HMRC use of PSC for “Personal Service Company”.
Once your identity is verified with Companies House you receive a “Companies House Personal Code”; from 18 November 2025, this will need to be:
- Included on Confirmation Statements
- Used when you become a Director, LLP Partner or PSC
- Used if you file at Companies House
- Provided to us if we are filing documents for you
This is a two stage process:
- Verify your ID and get a “Companies House Personal Code”
- After 18th November, enter this code in the Companies House record for each Company or LLP where you are a Director, PSC or Partner. The timescale for this is circumstance dependant, see below.
How to Verify your Identification
This is a one off process, generating a “Companies House personal code” which applies to all Companies you are involved with now or in the future.
Guidance on verifying your identity for Companies House is here:
- Verifying your identity for Companies House
- When you need to verify your identity for Companies House
The link to start the process is:
Verifying your ID is via a GOV.UK One Login, which you may already have. Note:
- You need a unique email address, not shared with anyone else, for this.
- One Login is not the same as a Government Gateway login, or an existing Companies House login (these are being phased out and migrated to GOV.UK One Login).,
Once you have this login:
- If you have a biometric passport and a recent smart phone with biometric reader the process takes under ten minutes.
- Other options are available via GOV.UK One Login, using a driving license, or personal information cross referenced to banking information and credit file.
- There is a fall-back last resort process involving visiting a Post Office.
You will see reference in the guidance to an Accountant, acting as ACSP (Authorised Corporate Service Provider), verifying your ID for you – Whitefield/YogaTax are a ACSP, but we are not able to undertake ID verification for clients. This is because the Identification Standards for Companies House go considerably beyond those we currently are required to adhere to for Anti Money Laundering, and would require us to use either Biometrics or have staff trained to Home Office Fraud Detection Standards, neither of which we have access to. To this end it is not practical for us – and we suspect the majority of Accountants – to verify clients. The only way we could do this would be by directing you to a third party verifying company, receiving a report from them, and uploading it to Companies House – this would be a circuitous route and would incur costs without making the underlying process any easier.
We suggest that Directors, Partners in LLPs and People with Significant Control start the process of verification with Companies House. If it is straightforward then it is done; if there are issues you have time to resolve them.
If you have queries about the process, or the evidence required, we respectfully refer you to Companies House – we cannot override their requirements.
Once you have verified your identification, you will get a “Companies House personal code” which is in the format “xxx-xxxx-nnnn” (x being alpha numeric, n numeric).
There is no need to tell us when you are verified, but we would welcome feedback around any problems encountered and their resolution.
There are anecdotal reports of considerable difficulty with Companies House IT. Clearing web history, cache and cookies seems to often clear this as does coming back after ten minutes and trying again.
When To Provide the ID Verification to Companies House
At the time of writing (24th November 2025) the ID requirement is new and evolving, and there are considerable teething problems. Here is what we know:
- All Directors / LLP Partners / PSCs will need a personal code – see the link above on obtaining this. This code is personal to the individual and is used for all appointments they have.
- For Director / LLP Partners /PSC appointments after 18th November the code will be needed at the time of appointment / notification to Companies House.
For existing appointments as Director/Partner/PSC:
- The code needs to be entered separately for Directors/Partners and PSCs, even if the Director/Partner is a PSC.
- For Directors / LLP partners this code is entered against the company record at the time of completing the first Confirmation Statement after 18th November 2025.
- For a PSC who is a Director/Partner the code is entered via form VS01 within 14 days of the Completion Statement. Anecdotally it seems in some cases / many cases it cannot be entered at the same time, and needs a gap of at least 24 hours.
- For a PSC who is not a Director/Partner the code is entered via form VS01 within the first 14 days of their birth month, eg born on 25th December, enter during the period 1st to 14th December.
- In some instances, even if the PSC is a Director/Partner they may not be identified as such if the name record against Director/Partner on the one part, and PSC on the other part, doesn’t match at Companies House. Eg if the Director/partner Record is “John David Smith” but the PSC record is “John Smith”. In such cases the prudent course of action is to adjust both records to match, however it appears this does not change the date requirements which were fixed at 18th November 2025.
- At this time we do not know if Companies House will send reminders about the birth month filing requirements for PSCs, and we do not know if there will be a penalty regime for non compliance.
If you check the company record at Companies House it clearly states (a) verification dates for Directors/partners and PSCs under the relevant sections for “People” and “Persons with Significant Control”, and also indicates status when complete.
Again a reminder not to confuse differing definitions of PSC – Companies House uses the term PSC for “Persons with Significant Control” and HMRC uses the term PSC for “Personal Service Companies” and these are very different.
Final Note
The sense is Companies House are struggling with some of these processes, and there may well be guidance changes in the run up to, or just after 18th November. Directors, LLP partners and PSCs are advised to pro-actively review their position and act on reminders and correspondence from Companies House.