Companies House ID Verification: What Every Director Must Do Before November 2026

Every director and person with significant control (PSC) of a UK company must now verify their identity with Companies House. It has applied to new director appointments and new PSC registrations since 18 November 2025; existing directors and PSCs are in a transition period that ends 17 November 2026, but for most the real deadline arrives sooner — whenever their company's next confirmation statement falls due. Miss it, and Companies House will reject the filing.

Key takeaways

• New appointments have required verification since 18 November 2025. You cannot be appointed as a new director, or registered as a new PSC, without it, according to Companies House's rollout confirmation on GOV.UK.
• Existing directors and PSCs have until 17 November 2026 — the end of a 12-month transition period — but Companies House says the practical deadline for most is their company's next confirmation statement, which will be rejected without the required identity codes.
• Verification is personal, not per-company. Complete it once and you receive a single Companies House identity code, reused across every directorship — but you must still supply that code to each company's own filing, so a NED on several boards should act before the earliest of those confirmation statement dates.
• Two verification routes exist: free and direct via GOV.UK One Login, or through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider such as an accountant or solicitor, according to the Companies House blog.
• Uptake is real but incomplete. Nearly 4 million individuals had verified their identity by June 2026, and by the end of that quarter 55% of directors had informed Companies House of their verified status, according to Companies House's own management information.

What is Companies House identity verification?

Identity verification is a Companies Act requirement, introduced by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, that every individual director and PSC must prove who they are to Companies House before they can hold — or continue to hold — that role. It replaced a register that, until now, accepted director and PSC details without checking that the person named was real or accurately identified. The change is aimed squarely at closing that gap: Companies House has described its own transformation as moving "from a passive register to a trusted guardian of critical data," in the words of Andy King, Chief Executive of Companies House, according to a GOV.UK progress update, June 2026.

When did Companies House identity verification start, and when is the deadline?

Two dates matter, and conflating them is the most common source of confusion. From 18 November 2025, identity verification became a precondition for any new director appointment or new PSC registration — no verification, no appointment, according to Companies House's rollout confirmation on GOV.UK. Separately, everyone who was already a director or PSC before that date entered a 12-month transition period running to 17 November 2026, the "backstop" by which Companies House expects everyone to have verified. Companies House estimated that 6 to 7 million individuals would need to verify their identity by that point.

In practice, the transition period is not really a year of breathing room. Existing directors are asked to confirm they've verified their identity when their company files its next confirmation statement (CS01) — and a confirmation statement submitted without the required identity codes will be rejected, according to guidance from Blake Morgan LLP, a UK law firm tracking the rollout. Because every company's CS01 falls on a different date through the year, "the November 2026 deadline" is really a floor, not the date most directors should be planning around.

Does a director on several boards need to verify their identity more than once?

No. The identity check itself is a one-off process tied to the individual, not to any one company. Once you've completed verification — through either route — Companies House issues you a single personal identity code, and that code is what links your identity across every directorship and PSC role you hold, according to Companies House's rollout guidance on GOV.UK.

What still varies is the paperwork. Each company you're a director of must include your identity code on its own confirmation statement, so the code has to reach every board you sit on, according to Blake Morgan's July 2026 analysis of the rollout. For a NED holding three or four directorships, the practical implication is straightforward: identify the earliest confirmation statement date across all of your boards, and treat that — not 17 November 2026 — as your real deadline. Verifying once, well ahead of that date, avoids a scramble on any one board's filing.

How does a director actually verify their identity?

There are two routes, and most directors will only need to choose once.

Both routes feed the same outcome: a personal identity code recorded against you at Companies House, according to the Companies House blog, October 2025.

What happens if a director misses the deadline?

The consequences sit with the filing, not just the individual. A confirmation statement submitted without the required identity verification codes will be rejected by Companies House, according to Blake Morgan LLP's analysis. A company that cannot get a valid confirmation statement accepted risks the Registrar moving toward striking it off — and separately, it becomes an offence to act as a director without being verified once that duty applies. Companies House has said it will take "a proportionate approach to enforcement," but the mechanical effect — a bounced filing — arrives regardless of how enforcement is calibrated.

How prepared are directors, in practice?

Progress is real but partial. Nearly 4 million individuals had verified their identity and linked it to their Companies House appointments by June 2026, according to a GOV.UK progress report. Companies House's own management information for April to June 2026 puts the breakdown at 55% of directors, 50% of LLP members and 42% of PSCs having informed Companies House of their verified identity by the end of that quarter, as reported by company-secretarial advisers PKF Francis Clark. That leaves a meaningful minority of directors — including, almost certainly, some sitting on multiple boards — still to act before their earliest confirmation statement comes round.

In summary

Companies House identity verification is no longer optional: it has applied to every new director appointment and PSC registration since 18 November 2025, and existing directors and PSCs have until 17 November 2026 at the latest — though in practice, their company's next confirmation statement will force the issue sooner. The check itself is a one-off, personal process, so a director on several boards should verify once, ahead of the earliest confirmation statement across those boards, rather than waiting for the backstop date. Getting it done early avoids a rejected filing landing at the worst possible moment.

meetinginsight.ai helps NEDs keep track of the governance obligations that sit alongside board papers — the filing deadlines, committee actions and compliance milestones that are easy to lose across several boards. For the wider role this sits inside, see what a non-executive director actually does, and for the governance code changes running alongside it in 2026, read our explainer on what applies now.

Notes

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This article is general guidance, not legal advice. For the authoritative rules, see Companies House's guidance on identity verification.