Companies House isn't asking politely anymore. Since 18 November 2025, every new director and person with significant control has had to verify their identity before they can be appointed. Existing directors and PSCs are now working through a 12-month transition, and by the middle of November 2026, somewhere between six and seven million people will have had to prove who they say they are.
What's actually changing
New appointments are already covered. If you're bringing on a director or registering a new PSC today, identity verification happens at the point of appointment, no exceptions.
For directors already in post, verification is tied to your next confirmation statement. You confirm you've verified at the same time you file, inside that 12-month window. For PSCs, it works slightly differently: each one gets an appointed day and a 14-day window to complete verification once notified.
Miss it, and the consequences aren't administrative. Companies House can flag the company, and knowingly filing false information is a criminal offence under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act.
Why this matters more than it looks
Founders tend to file this under "something the accountant handles." That's the wrong instinct. A verified, accurate PSC register is now one of the first things a buyer, investor, or lender's due diligence team checks. An unverified director, a PSC who was never properly recorded, a family member holding shares who's drifted out of the loop, these show up as red flags at exactly the moment you don't want them noticed.
If you're even loosely thinking about raising, selling, or restructuring in the next two years, your Companies House record is part of your story before you've told it.
What founders should do now
- Pull your current director and PSC list and check it against reality. Anyone listed who shouldn't be? Anyone missing?
- Check your confirmation statement date so you know your actual verification deadline, not the headline one.
- Verify early. Doing it in a quiet month beats doing it during a raise or a sale process.
- Brief any PSC who isn't active day-to-day (a spouse, a co-founder who's stepped back) so they're not caught off guard by a 14-day window.
- Treat this as a governance tidy-up, not just a compliance box. It's a cheap way to remove friction from whatever comes next.
For the official rollout detail, see Companies House's identity verification announcement.
The founders who treat this as routine now are the ones who won't be explaining a lapsed register mid-deal later. If you want a hand auditing your director and PSC records before your next confirmation statement, that's a conversation worth having early.
Talk to us about tightening up your company structure before it becomes someone else's question.
