Changes afoot at Companies House - Directors and owners now need to have IDs verified

Changes are afoot

Starting from April this year (2025), Directors and owners of UK companies will need to verify their identities with Companies House.

This is part of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, which is designed to strengthen the UK's business environment, improve transparency, and reduce fraud and other economic crimes 👮

This has already been brought in when setting up new companies, and will be rolled out to existing companies starting from autumn 2025.

Why the change?

Until now, Companies House acted as a kind of ‘passive’ register for UK company info. They would basically accept whatever info they were given about the names, addresses and dates of birth of company Directors, taking it all at face value.

However, having no checks on the identities of company Directors to ensure they are real people, led to some rather embarrassing situations where people could (and did!) register company Directors with fake names like “Mickey Mouse”, “Darth Vader”, and “Adolf Tooth-Fairy Hitler” (no really - click the link to see it on the Companies House register)

So with these changes in place, fictional Directors shouldn’t get through anymore because they will need to verify their identity and complete the ID checks as part of the process.

The new legislation is also intended to stop those with more serious intentions like fraudsters, money launderers, etc 🦹

How will it work?

Directors and owners (being those defined as being “Persons of Significant Control” or PSCs) will need verify their identity either:

1. Directly with Companies House; or

2. Through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP)

If you go down the direct route (option 1), you will need your passport or driving license to hand, then log into the Companies House website to complete an online verification process.

Spoiler alert - we handle all of this for you instead!

If option 2 sounds better, the good news is that CloudCFO is registered as an ACSP, as we are regulated by the ICAEW as our Anti-Money Laundering supervisory body.

That means we can notify Companies House that we have completed the required ID checks on you as our client, and can testify to them that the details they hold for you are correct, and that you are indeed a real person!

This saves you all of the hassle of going online and completing the verification process with Companies House yourself.

How easy is it do to yourself?

We’re in the process of writing a blog on this too!

Check back soon and we’ll have an answer for you…

In summary…

UK company directors and owners now need to verify their identities with Companies House as part of new anti-fraud legislation.

As a registered Authorised Corporate Service Provider, CloudCFO can handle the ID verification for you - saving you time and hassle.