The government has introduced new rules to improve the information held at Companies House and reduce criminal activities. Here’s some information for small business owners.
Personal information
Since January 2025, you can ask for your registered office address to remain private if it’s also your home address.
Soon you may also ask to:
keep your residential address private in most places on the Companies House register
keep your date of birth private for documents registered before 10 October 2015. After this date you only had to provide your month and year of birth anyway.
keep your signature and business occupation private.
If you’re concerned you could come to harm, following domestic abuse, for example, you can also protect your information from public viewing. This can include your current and previous names, sensitive addresses, service addresses and your month and year of birth.
Company registers
Companies House currently provides a Central Register where you can choose to keep your statutory registers, instead of maintaining your own.
From this autumn you won’t have this option, but you won’t have to keep your own register of:
directors
directors’ residential addresses
secretaries
people with significant control (PSCs).
You must still register this information with Companies House and keep it up to date.
Limited partnerships
Some businesses choose a structure that has elements of a general partnership and of a limited liability partnership. Limited partners’ risk depends on their investment while at least one general partner has unlimited liability. If planned legislation goes ahead, information about limited partnerships will become more detailed from spring 2026. Limited partnerships must then provide:
partners’ names, dates of birth and usual residential addresses
verified identities of general partners
a registered office address in the UK
a standard industrial classification (SIC) code
an annual confirmation statement.
An Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP) registered with Companies House must provide the information to make sure it’s accurate.
New powers will allow Companies House to:
close and restore limited partnerships
apply sanctions
protect partners’ information
operate a statutory compliance process.
Company ownership
There are also plans to make company ownership information clearer. This will include requirements to:
record the full names of shareholders in your register of members
tell Companies House the full names of all shareholders and provide a one-off full shareholder list when you file your next confirmation statement.
Extra information about PSCs will give details of their shares and where they’re traded. Corporate Directors must be actual people with verified identities under the new rules.
Filing accounts
Software-only accounts filing is likely to replace web-based and paper filing options at Companies House. This means you’ll have to file your accounts in a suitable digital format. This is likely to take place over the next two to three years. Companies House says it will provide at least 21 months’ advance notice to give you time to prepare.
Please get in touch if you would like to discuss how these changes could affect your business’s financial record keeping.
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