Companies House Identity Verification: What Every Female Director Must Do Now

If you sit on the board of a UK limited company, own more than 25% of one, or are about to incorporate a new venture, Companies House identity verification is no longer optional. The rules that came into force on 18 November 2025 will affect an estimated six to seven million people, and the transition period ends in November 2026. For the roughly one in three UK entrepreneurs who are women, understanding what this means in practice is the difference between filing your confirmation statement smoothly and finding your company blocked from routine transactions.

This guide sets out exactly what Companies House identity verification requires, who has to do it, when your personal deadline falls, and what happens if you miss it. It is written for female founders, directors and people with significant control (PSCs) who want the practical detail without the jargon.

Why Companies House identity verification exists

The requirement is one of the headline reforms of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA), the biggest overhaul of UK company law in a generation. The register had a well-documented problem with fictitious directors, shell companies and identity misuse, and the government’s response was to move Companies House from a passive filing library to an active gatekeeper.

More than 1.5 million individuals have already verified their identity since Companies House launched its identity verification service on a voluntary basis in April. That voluntary phase ended on 18 November 2025, when from 18 November 2025, all new and existing company directors and people with significant control (PSC) will need to verify their identity with Companies House.

The scale of the change is significant. Companies House estimates that 6 to 7 million people will need to verify their identity. That includes anyone acting as a director, anyone recorded as a PSC on the register, and, from later in the transition, anyone filing on a company’s behalf as an authorised agent.

Who exactly has to verify

The verification obligation is personal, not corporate. It attaches to individuals in specific roles, and each role has its own timetable. If you hold several positions across companies, you still only verify once. Your verified identity is then linked to your Companies House record using a personal code.

You need Companies House identity verification if you are:

• A director of a UK limited company (including single-director companies)
• A person with significant control (broadly, an owner of more than 25% of shares or voting rights)
• A member of an LLP
• Someone filing documents at Companies House on behalf of a company
• A general partner in certain limited partnerships

For women running businesses through a limited company, the practical position is that both the director role and any significant shareholding trigger the requirement. If you are both the sole director and the 100% shareholder (a very common structure for women-led micro-companies), you verify once but your identity must be linked to both roles. If you are not sure which structure applies to you, our guide on choosing between sole trader and limited company status sets out the trade-offs.

When you must verify: the timetable that matters

18 November 2025 is not, in itself, a deadline. From 18 November 2025, identity verification becomes a legal requirement. This date is not a deadline. It marks the start of a 12-month transition period, giving your company time to make sure all directors and people with significant control (PSCs) have verified their identity by their due dates.

The confirmation statement is the mechanism Companies House is using to enforce this. If you were a director before 18 November 2025, you must verify before your company files its next confirmation statement after 5 March 2026. For new appointments, verification must happen before the person can act. For new PSCs, it must happen within 14 days of becoming a PSC.

Here is how the timeline breaks down for different roles.

Your role	When you must verify	Consequence of missing it
New director (appointed on or after 18 Nov 2025)	Before you can be appointed and start acting	Appointment cannot be registered
Existing director (in post before 18 Nov 2025)	Before the next confirmation statement filed after 5 March 2026	Confirmation statement blocked
New PSC	Within 14 days of becoming a PSC	Criminal offence; register annotation
Existing PSC	By an appointed day within the 12-month transition	Criminal offence; enforcement action
Person filing on the company’s behalf	From the point third-party filing agent rules commence	Filing rejected

The practical upshot for most existing female directors is that if your company’s confirmation statement falls due after 5 March 2026, your personal verification needs to be complete before you file. If your confirmation statement was due in December 2025 or January 2026, you had a short reprieve, but you should still verify well before your next annual cycle.

How to verify: the two routes

There are two legitimate ways to complete Companies House identity verification. Both produce the same outcome, a verified identity linked to your Companies House record by a personal code, but they suit different circumstances.

Route one: GOV.UK One Login

The direct route uses the government’s single sign-on system. The easiest way to verify is using a passport, through the GOV.UK One Login app. You download the app, scan your photo ID (a UK passport is the smoothest option), record a short video of your face to confirm liveness, and the system does the matching. Most users complete the process in under 15 minutes.

Once verified, you receive a personal code in the format ABC-D123-4567. You must then enter this code against your Companies House record to link your verified identity to the register. It is a two-step process and the second step catches people out. If you verify but do not link the code, you are not compliant.

The One Login route is free. It works best for anyone with an in-date UK biometric passport and a modern smartphone.

Route two: an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP)

If the app route is not feasible, you can pay a regulated professional. You can ask an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP), such as an accountant or solicitor, to verify your identity on your behalf. This is also known as a Companies House authorised agent. ACSPs must be supervised for anti-money laundering purposes and register directly with Companies House to offer the service. Most accountants and company formation agents are now offering it as a paid add-on, typically between £25 and £75 per person.

The ACSP route is worth considering if you do not have a UK passport, if your ID documents have flagged issues, if you are based overseas but hold UK directorships, or if you simply want a professional to handle it alongside your annual accounts. It also creates a clear audit trail, which some women in regulated sectors prefer.

What happens if you do not verify

The tone from Companies House on enforcement is measured but firm. Under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, acting as a director while unverified is no longer just a “late filing” issue; it is a criminal offence.

In practice, enforcement is graduated. If users do not comply with identity verification requirements by their due date, we will send them a default letter. This letter will set out the offence of not complying with identity verification requirements. From there, escalation depends on the pattern of behaviour. We’re likely to consider non-compliance to be ‘serious’ if a person or company has committed 3 or more offences over a 5 year period.

Companies House has also confirmed it will annotate the public register to show that a director or PSC is unverified. That annotation is visible to anyone searching the company: banks running due diligence, potential investors, procurement teams, journalists. For a female founder trying to win contracts or raise capital, an “unverified” flag next to her name is a commercial problem long before it becomes a legal one.

Failure to comply is not a technical breach; it is a criminal offence and can, in practice, prevent companies from making routine filings, registering changes, or progressing transactions at critical points. The practical consequences reported by accountants in the first six months of the regime include:

• Confirmation statements rejected and companies pushed towards strike-off
• New director appointments unable to be registered
• Share transfers and PSC changes blocked
• Banks pausing account changes pending resolution
• Insurance underwriters querying director status on renewal

Longer term, persistent non-compliance risks fines, director disqualification proceedings, and, in the most serious cases involving deliberate concealment, criminal prosecution under the Companies Act 2006.

The gender dimension: why this matters more for some women

The uncomfortable truth is that identity verification schemes have historically had higher friction rates for women, and specifically for women who have changed names on marriage or divorce, women born outside the UK, and women whose photo ID predates a significant appearance change.

The population affected is large. 1.8 million women now run incorporated or self-employed ventures across the UK, the highest share on record. Female-led incorporations are a substantial share of new company formations: 151,603 all-female incorporations in the UK in 2022 (Rose Review analysis of mnAI data), and the trend has continued. If even a small percentage of these directors hit verification friction, we are talking about tens of thousands of women.

Common issues to watch for:

• Name mismatches. If your Companies House record shows a married name but your passport is still in your maiden name (or vice versa), verification will fail. Update Companies House first, or use the ACSP route with supporting documents.
• Expired or damaged passports. The One Login app is strict on document condition. Renew before you verify.
• Non-UK passports. One Login accepts many but not all. Non-UK residents with UK directorships often find the ACSP route more reliable.
• Biometric mismatches. Post-partum, post-illness or post-treatment facial changes have caused documented failures. If the app rejects you twice, switch to ACSP rather than persisting.

For women considering incorporation as a next step, this is also a good moment to plan properly. Our start a business today guide covers the setup sequence, and if you are exploring funding to grow, our page on grants for women in business lists current UK schemes.

How verification is going: the first-year data

Companies House began publishing quarterly performance data in early 2026. This publication contains quarterly performance data on identity verification compliance for Companies House. We publish this data as part of our public measures commitment, with the first release covering October to December 2025.

Independent tracking by accountants points to steady progress but a long tail of laggards. Figures circulated in the profession showed People with significant control (PSCs): Verified: 1,233,660 To be verified: 5,266,690 at one snapshot in early 2026. That is a verification rate of around 19% for PSCs alone at that point, with the vast majority of the population still to be processed within the 12-month window.

The contrarian angle worth flagging is that early verification is not always the smart move for very small companies. Some accountants argue that verifying immediately, before the ACSP market has fully matured and pricing has settled, has locked clients into higher fees. Others counter that leaving it until autumn 2026 risks capacity constraints at Companies House and at professional firms all trying to clear the same backlog. On balance, for most female directors, verifying at least three months before your first post-March 2026 confirmation statement is the safest approach.

A practical checklist for female directors

If you have not yet verified, work through this in the next fortnight.

1. Find your confirmation statement due date. Log into Companies House WebFiling or check your public record. Your verification deadline is driven by this date.
2. Check your name matches your ID. If Companies House shows a different name to your passport or driving licence, file a director change of name before you try to verify.
3. Check your date of birth and address on the register. Any mismatch will cause the verification linkage to fail.
4. Pick your route. One Login if you have a UK passport and a modern phone; ACSP if not.
5. Verify. Complete the identity check and note down your personal code carefully.
6. Link the code. Sign in to Companies House and connect your verified identity to each of your director and PSC roles.
7. Get every other director and PSC done. Your company’s compliance depends on the whole group, not just you.
8. Diarise the next confirmation statement. Confirm, when filing, that all relevant individuals are verified.

What this means for how you run your company

Identity verification is the first visible piece of a wider shift. A number of reforms are already in force, such as those pertaining to fees and sanctions, and more are coming: registered office rules already require a genuine appropriate address rather than a PO box, all companies must supply a registered email, and stricter checks on filed accounts are being phased in.

For female founders, the operational implications are worth thinking through now.

If you are about to incorporate. Verify your identity before you file the IN01, not after. It is faster to have your personal code ready than to be caught between forming the company and being able to act. For a step-by-step walk-through, see our guide on setting up a limited company in the UK.

If you have a nominee or family director structure. The days of putting a spouse or parent on the board for administrative convenience are effectively over. Every named director must personally verify. If a family member does not want to complete the check, remove them formally before your next confirmation statement.

If you are a solo founder considering scaling. Bringing in a co-director now involves a real onboarding step. Factor verification time into hiring, especially for non-UK executives.

If you use a company formation agent. Check whether they are a registered ACSP. Unregistered agents can no longer file on your behalf, and any who claim otherwise should be avoided.

The bigger picture

The Rose Review found that closing the gender gap in UK entrepreneurship could add £250 billion to the economy. Reforms like Companies House identity verification are neutral on their face, but they raise the compliance floor for every new company, and that floor lands hardest on the smallest businesses, which are disproportionately female-founded.

The counter-argument matters too. A cleaner register benefits legitimate businesses. Fraudulent use of directors’ identities, invoice scams involving spoofed companies, and shell entities used to launder money all impose costs that fall heavily on small firms without the resources to investigate. If Companies House identity verification reduces that friction, women running micro-companies stand to gain from it more than most.

The final point is a practical one. Verification is a one-off task with a lasting benefit. Once done, it stays done. You never have to repeat it unless you change your legal name or a material identity detail. Compared with the annual cycle of accounts, confirmation statements and tax filings, it is a small addition to your compliance load, and it is by some distance the most consequential change in UK company law that will land on your desk this year.

If you are in doubt about your personal deadline or your route, do not wait until October 2026 to find out. The queue at both Companies House and at professional firms will be substantial in the final months of the transition, and a rejected confirmation statement is not a problem you want to be resolving under time pressure. For the wider context on women’s role in the UK economy, our women in business key UK facts page is updated with the latest ONS and Rose Review data.

Complete Companies House identity verification now, link your personal code to every role you hold, and turn a regulatory obligation into a piece of housekeeping you can forget about. Then get back to running the business.