The confirmation statement: deadline, £50 fee, and what overdue really means

What it is and what it costs

The confirmation statement (form CS01) confirms that the information Companies House holds about your company — registered office, officers, shareholders, people with significant control — is correct on a given date. The fee is £50 online or £110 on paper, paid once per 12-month payment period; if you file additional statements inside the same period, they are free. Dormant companies file it on the same terms as trading ones: there is no dormant discount and no dormant exemption.

The dates that matter

Your review period runs 12 months from incorporation, or from the date of your last statement. You then have 14 days to file. A company incorporated on 7 July has a review period ending 6 July the following year and a filing deadline of 20 July. The deadline does not move because the company is small, dormant or between accountants — and it is a separate clock from your accounts deadline, which is usually months away from it.

Late or overdue: what actually happens

A late confirmation statement does not start a fixed penalty ladder the way late accounts do — but the consequences are not smaller. A late confirmation statement is an offence by the company and its directors: Companies House can fine the company up to £5,000 and strike it off the register. Companies House also says you could get a financial penalty for filing late. The public register shows 'overdue' against your company's name for anyone who searches it, and banks, customers and credit agencies do search it; and persistent failure is one of the two standard triggers for the registrar to begin striking the company off. Strike-off means the company ceases to exist and anything it owns passes to the Crown.

1. Day 1 after the 14-day window: the register shows the confirmation statement as overdue; the offence has been committed.
2. While it stays overdue: reminder and chasing letters; a financial penalty is possible; the overdue marker is visible to anyone searching the company.
3. If Companies House has reasonable cause to believe the company is not in operation: two communications 14 days apart, then a Gazette notice, then strike-off 2 months later unless the filings are made.
4. Since 18 November 2025 a further block: the statement cannot be filed at all until every director has verified their identity — an unverified director makes the statement overdue by default.

If yours is already overdue, the fix is the same filing, done now: there is no separate late-filing form, the online fee is the normal one, and filing clears the overdue marker once it is processed. Clear the accounts at the same time if they are overdue too — most involuntary strike-offs involve both.

Confirmation statement vs accounts — two clocks, not one

Accounts and the confirmation statement are separate filings with separate deadlines and separate consequences for lateness: accounts carry automatic penalties (£150 to £1,500 for a private company, £750 to £7,500 for a plc), while a late statement is an offence that can bring a fine of up to £5,000 and strike-off. Filing one does not touch the other. Most companies that get struck off involuntarily missed both — usually because nobody was watching either date.

Keeping ahead of both dates

Both deadlines are public register data, so a watcher can track them for you. PromptFiling's deadline watching is free: enter a company number and it reminds you at 90, 30 and 7 days before each date, accounts and confirmation statement alike. The reminders exist because the register shows most late filers were not struggling with the form — they simply found out too late.

Official sources

• Companies House guidance — Confirmation statement
• Companies House — Filing your company's confirmation statement (fee)

Sources checked 10 September 2026.