Guides & FAQ

A private company's annual accounts are due 9 months after its accounting reference date (the financial year end). A company's very first accounts are different: they are due 21 months after incorporation if the first financial year is longer than 12 months. Miss the date and a penalty applies automatically.

Every company, including dormant ones, must file a confirmation statement at least once every 12 months, and has 14 days after the end of the review period to file it. It confirms the register data is correct and is separate from the annual accounts.

A private company's late-filing penalty starts at £150 (up to 1 month late) and rises to £375 (1–3 months), £750 (3–6 months) and £1,500 (over 6 months). The penalty doubles if your accounts are late in two successive financial years, and it applies automatically — 'I forgot' is not accepted as an excuse.

Yes. Persistent failure to file accounts or confirmation statements can lead the registrar to strike the company off, and its assets then pass to the Crown. Filing on time is what keeps a dormant company alive.

Yes — until 1 April 2028, dormant and micro-entity accounts can be filed free through Companies House WebFiling. From that date the web and paper routes close for accounts and commercial software becomes the only way to file. The free HMRC route for Company Tax Returns closed earlier, on 31 March 2026.

From 1 April 2028, all accounts must be filed by commercial software in iXBRL format — Companies House closes its web and paper accounts routes (announced 9 June 2026, delayed from the original April 2027 date). In the same package, micro-entities and small companies must file a profit and loss account, and abridged accounts are abolished.

From 1 April 2028 micro-entities must deliver a profit and loss account to Companies House. The government has announced an option not to publish it on the public register, but the regulations creating that option have not been made yet — so treat non-publication as unconfirmed until they are.

Yes. A dormant company must file annual accounts and a confirmation statement every year, on the same deadlines as an active company. Dormancy changes what the accounts contain (a simple balance sheet, no profit and loss), not whether they are due.

A company is dormant for Companies House if it has no 'significant accounting transactions' during the period — and the list of ignored transactions is short: subscriber shares on formation, registrar fees for a change of name, re-registration or a confirmation statement, and a late-filing penalty. Anything else — a bank charge, an accountancy fee, an insurance premium — breaks dormancy.

No — the two tests are different and a company can be dormant for one but not the other. HMRC looks at activity and income (trading, providing services, earning interest, managing investments); Companies House looks at recorded transactions. A company that pays its own bank charges but earns nothing is dormant for HMRC yet not dormant for Companies House.

If HMRC has sent a notice to deliver a Company Tax Return, the return must be filed for that period even if the company was dormant throughout — there is no legal mechanism for HMRC to withdraw a notice once served. Telling HMRC the company is dormant stops future notices being issued, so do it promptly; it just does not cancel one you already have.

AA02 is the paper template for dormant company accounts, and it is narrower than most people expect: only for a company limited by shares that has never traded, whose only transaction is the subscriber shares, and which is not a subsidiary. A company that traded and later became dormant cannot use it — it files dormant accounts through the online or software route instead.

For financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2025, a company qualifies as a micro-entity if it meets two of three conditions: turnover not more than £1 million, balance sheet total (gross assets) not more than £500,000, and not more than 10 employees on average. For years that began earlier, the old limits of £632,000 and £316,000 apply.

Micro-entity accounts filed at Companies House today are a balance sheet with two short notes at its foot (financial commitments and guarantees; directors' advances) — no directors' report is required at all, and the profit and loss account is not filed publicly until the April 2028 changes take effect. The full accounts, including the profit and loss, still go to the members and to HMRC.

It is the 6-character code Companies House issues for electronic filing, and it acts as the legal signature on anything filed for the company. Companies House advises treating it like a bank card PIN and sharing it only with someone you trust to file for the company — filing software needs it to submit your accounts.

Yes — filing your own accounts is legal and, for a dormant company, genuinely simple: the accounts are effectively one page. There is no requirement to use an accountant for dormant or micro-entity accounts; you need the company's authentication code and, from April 2028, filing software.

Yes — under ECCTA, new directors must verify their identity from 18 November 2025, and existing directors confirm verification with their next confirmation statement during a 12-month transition ending in mid-November 2026. It is a Companies House process and separate from your filing deadlines.

PromptFiling watches your company's statutory deadlines — accounts and confirmation statement — and reminds you at 90, 30 and 7 days before each, free for one company. When a filing is due, it prepares dormant accounts from a short interview, shows you exactly what will be filed, and files only after you approve.

No. PromptFiling is an independent tool. It reads public register data through the official Companies House API and files through the official software-filing channel, but it is not a government service and does not pretend to be one.

Deadline watching and reminders are free for one company, forever. A one-off dormant accounts filing is £29, and Watch & File at £48 a year includes the annual filing. For comparison, the late-filing penalty starts at £150 — the subscription costs less than a third of one missed deadline.