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18 November 2026 is not your deadline. Your confirmation statement date is.

By Buzz Accounting · 2026-09-16

If you contract through your own limited company, you are almost certainly both its sole director and its person with significant control — the only shareholder, the only signatory, the only person Companies House has ever needed to hear from. That used to mean administration was light. Since 18 November 2025 it means you are the one person in the company who has to personally prove who you are, or the company stops being able to file anything at all.

Most of what has been written about this talks about "the November 2026 deadline" as if it is one date for everyone. It isn't. For an existing company, the real deadline is whichever confirmation statement date comes first after 18 November 2025 — and for a lot of one-person contractor companies, that is a lot sooner than November next year.

What changed, and why it lands hardest on solo directors

Under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, every individual acting as a company director or registered as a person with significant control (PSC) now has to verify their identity with Companies House. The requirement became law on 18 November 2025. It applies going forward to every new director appointment, and it applies retrospectively to everyone already in post, on a phased timetable running out to a hard backstop of 18 November 2026.

In a company with several directors and a spread of shareholders, the admin gets shared around. In a one-person contractor company it doesn't — you are the director, you are the PSC, and if you don't verify, there is no one else who can keep the company compliant in your place.

Your actual deadline: the confirmation statement, not the backstop

For a company that already existed before 18 November 2025, the rule is: directors must verify before the date of the company's first confirmation statement due after 18 November 2025. Every company has its own confirmation statement date, set by its incorporation anniversary or last statement filed, and that date is public on the Companies House register.

A contractor company incorporated in 2019 with a confirmation statement date of 14 March, for example, has its first confirmation statement due after 18 November 2025 falling on 14 March 2026. That is the director's real deadline — eight months earlier than the backstop date most people have heard quoted, and easy to miss if you assume you have until next November.

What happens if you miss it

If a director has not verified their identity by the time the confirmation statement falls due, the company cannot file that confirmation statement. Confirmation statements are themselves a statutory filing with their own deadline — normally 14 days after the review period ends — so a missed verification cascades straight into a missed statutory filing, with all the consequences that carries: the company falls out of good standing on the public register, and prolonged non-compliance is a route to Companies House starting strike-off action. Acting as a director without verifying once the requirement applies to you is also a criminal offence in its own right, separate from any filing consequences.

Director and PSC in one person: verify once, not twice

This is the detail that causes the most confusion for solo contractors, because you hold both roles on the same company. You only ever verify your identity once. Doing so gets you a personal verification code from Companies House, and that same code covers you in every role, on every company, that you're listed against. You do not go through the identity check itself a second time because you happen to be both the director and the PSC of your own company — but because Companies House still records director and PSC information as separate parts of the register, your code needs to be referenced against both your director filing and your PSC filing, even though it came from a single verification.

If you are a director or PSC of more than one company, the same logic applies across all of them: verify once, and your deadline becomes whichever of your companies' confirmation statement dates comes first.

How to actually do it

There are two routes:

Verify yourself, free, via GOV.UK One Login. You'll need a biometric passport, or a UK photo driving licence, or a UK biometric residence permit or card, plus your current address. You sign in to (or create) a GOV.UK One Login, then use the GOV.UK ID Check app or a browser to photograph your document and take a live selfie for facial matching. It typically takes under fifteen minutes if your document is to hand.
Verify through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP). An ACSP — typically your accountant, if they are registered as one with Companies House — can carry out the identity check on your behalf as part of the services they already provide. This suits directors who would rather not do it themselves, or whose ID documents make the online route awkward.

Either way, it is a one-off check, not an annual repeat. Once verified and issued a personal code, you do not go through it again for that identity.

What to do this week

Look up your company's confirmation statement date on the Companies House register — it's public and free to check.
Work out whether that date falls before or after 18 November 2026. If it's before, that earlier date is your real deadline, not the backstop.
Decide which route suits you: fifteen minutes on GOV.UK One Login with a passport or driving licence to hand, or asking your accountant if they're an Authorised Corporate Service Provider who can verify you.
If you hold director or PSC roles in more than one company, check all of their confirmation statement dates and work to the earliest.
Once verified, keep your personal code somewhere you can find it — you'll need to quote it when the confirmation statement (and any PSC update) is filed.

None of this changes what you report to Companies House — your accounts, your confirmation statement content and your PSC details stay exactly as they were. It changes whether the company is allowed to file them at all if the one person behind it hasn't proved who they are. If you're setting up a new contracting company rather than dealing with an existing one, our comparison of self-employed versus limited company is worth reading first, and our guide to going self-employed covers the wider registration checklist.

Where we help

We check your confirmation statement date against the new rules, flag your company's real deadline rather than the headline one, and — where we're acting as your Authorised Corporate Service Provider — can verify your identity as part of looking after your compliance, so a fifteen-minute admin job never turns into a company that can't file. Fixed fees from £19 + VAT a month. Get started.

Quick answers

About this post

Do I have to verify my identity with Companies House if I run my own limited company?

Yes, if you are a director or a person with significant control (PSC) of a UK company, which covers almost every one-person contractor limited company. The requirement became law on 18 November 2025 under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 and applies to every director and PSC, whether the company has one person behind it or fifty. There is no exemption for small or dormant companies — if you are named as a director or PSC on the register, the requirement applies to you personally.

What's my actual deadline to verify?

For a company that already existed before 18 November 2025, your deadline is the date of your company's first confirmation statement due after that date — not the headline 18 November 2026 backstop that gets quoted most often. Confirmation statement dates are set individually per company and are public on the Companies House register, so check yours directly rather than assuming you have until next November; many companies' real deadlines fall considerably earlier, sometimes by the best part of a year, depending purely on when the company happens to have been incorporated.

What happens if I don't verify in time?

Your company will not be able to file its confirmation statement, which is itself a statutory filing with its own deadline, so a missed verification quickly becomes a missed filing. That pushes the company out of good standing on the public register, and if it continues, it is a route toward Companies House strike-off action. Separately, acting as a director without verifying once the requirement applies to you is a criminal offence in its own right, regardless of any filing consequences.

I'm both the director and the PSC of my own company — do I have to verify twice?

No. You verify your identity once, and Companies House issues you a single personal verification code that covers you in every role and on every company you're listed against. The reason it can feel like two steps is that director information and PSC information are recorded as separate parts of the Companies House register, so your code has to be referenced against both your director filing and your PSC filing — but the identity check itself only ever happens once.

How do I actually verify my identity?

There are two routes. You can do it yourself for free through GOV.UK One Login, using a biometric passport, a UK photo driving licence, or a UK biometric residence permit or card, plus your current address — the process takes a photo of your document and a live selfie for facial matching, and usually takes under fifteen minutes. Alternatively, an Authorised Corporate Service Provider, typically an accountant registered with Companies House for this purpose, can carry out the verification on your behalf as part of their existing services.

Can my accountant verify my identity for me?

Yes, if they are registered with Companies House as an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP) — not every accountant automatically is, so it's worth checking rather than assuming. An ACSP takes on the responsibility of confirming your identity and reporting that to Companies House, which suits directors who would rather not do the online self-verification themselves or whose ID documents don't fit the accepted list for the GOV.UK route. It also means someone who already knows your company's filing deadlines is the one keeping track of your verification status.

Do I need to verify again if I set up a new company?

If you have already verified your identity once, that personal code carries across to any new company you become a director or PSC of — you don't repeat the identity check. If you have never verified before, a new director appointment made on or after 18 November 2025 requires verification before the appointment can be registered at all, so for a genuinely new company or a new director, it needs to happen upfront rather than being left until a confirmation statement is due.

Is this a one-off check or something I have to repeat every year?

It's a one-off. Once you've completed identity verification and been issued a personal code, that code stays valid and is simply quoted on future filings — there's no annual re-verification requirement in the way a confirmation statement has to be filed every year regardless. The exception in practice is if something about your registered identity changes materially, such as a legal name change, where Companies House may need you to go through the check again to keep the record accurate.

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