Companies House identity verification is live. Millions of directors still need to verify.
Since 18 November 2025, every new director appointment at a UK company requires verified identity. Existing directors must verify their identity at the time of their next annual confirmation statement, during a 12-month transition period ending in mid-November 2026. It's the centrepiece of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, and the biggest change to the UK company register in a generation.
Companies House estimates that 6 to 7 million individuals will need to verify their identity by mid-November 2026. For most people it's a one-off process that can be done in a few minutes via GOV.UK One Login or through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP).
The scale of the task
There are millions of active director and PSC appointments on the UK register, held by millions of unique individuals (many people are directors of more than one company).
As of early 2026, a significant number of individuals have yet to complete identity verification. The transition period is designed to spread the workload, with each director's deadline tied to their company's confirmation statement date.
Who may struggle to verify
Foreign-resident directors are likely to find the process harder. The verification process requires either a UK passport, UK driving licence, or an in-person identity check at a Post Office - all of which present challenges for overseas residents.
Dormant companies are another cluster. Directors of companies that have never traded and have no intention of trading are, unsurprisingly, less motivated to complete the process.
What happens if they don't
It is an offence to act as a director without being verified once the requirement commences for that individual. Unverified directors will be unable to file documents at Companies House. Companies House has stated it will adopt a proportionate approach to enforcement, but persistent non-compliance can lead to the company being struck off.
The inability to file - meaning no annual accounts, no confirmation statements, no officer changes - is effectively a corporate death sentence. A company that can't file will eventually be dissolved.
The fraud angle
The entire point of identity verification is to make it harder to register companies using fake or stolen identities. Companies House has acknowledged that thousands of companies on the register were incorporated using fraudulent identity documents. The verification process should, in theory, clean out a significant portion of these.
Whether it will catch sophisticated fraud operations - the kind that use real people as nominees and rotate through formation agents - is another question. We'll be watching the data closely to see what patterns emerge.