One code, six million directors.
From 18 November 2025 every UK director, Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) member and Person with Significant Control (PSC) — an estimated six to seven million people — must verify their identity at Companies House. The free route requires a near-field-communication (NFC) smartphone and a biometric passport. The paid route runs through accountants and formation agents at £30 to £80 a head. The 12-month transition closes in mid-November 2026.
01The pain
Robert James Smith runs a one-person consultancy in Manchester. He has filed his Companies House confirmation statement every November since 2008. This year his accountant told him the form will not clear until he verifies his identity through GOV.UK One Login, the UK government's single sign-on. The free route needs a biometric passport read by a near-field-communication (NFC) phone he does not own. The paid route runs through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP), usually his accountant, at £30 to £80 per check.
From 18 November 2025, acting as a director without a verified personal code became a criminal offence under the Companies Act 2006. The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA) caught six to seven million people in one stroke: every UK director, every LLP member, every PSC. Sanctions stack — fines, director disqualification, Companies House strike-off. Name-mismatch rejections (register vs passport spelling) are the modal failure mode in UK contractor forums.1,2
For consultancies already absorbing April 2025's employer National Insurance Contributions (NIC) rise and Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment (MTD ITSA), this is one more compliance line item with no opt-out. PSCs face a separate 14-day filing window tied to their birth month. The Post Office in-person fallback still has to be initiated online — which assumes the director already has a working GOV.UK One Login account.3
Further reading
- 1 GOV.UK — Companies House confirms identity-verification rollout from 18 November 2025: gov.uk
- 2 Goodwin Procter LLP — Identity verification: a new UK legal requirement (October 2025): goodwinlaw.com
- 3 Local Business Magazine — Companies House identity verification rollout: localbusinessmagazine.co.uk
02Who solves this today
Three UK formation agents and Authorised Corporate Service Providers (ACSPs) that name Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCTA) identity verification on their own front pages — the route a sole-director Person with Significant Control (PSC) actually takes when GOV.UK One Login rejects them. Each was checked live on the date of writing. The list is intentionally narrow.
Listed providers publicly market to the UK ECCTA / Companies House identity-verification / Authorised Corporate Service Provider niche on their own homepages or clearly-linked first-level pages. Inclusion is not endorsement. Adjacent UK-active candidates were considered and excluded where their public homepage did not explicitly name the niche at the date of writing — 1st Formations (1stformations.co.uk) returned HTTP 403 to automated fetch on the date of writing and could not be verified against the named-niche-on-homepage rule, so it was dropped pending a re-check; Inform Direct (informdirect.co.uk) returned HTTP 403 on the date of writing and could not be verified, so it was dropped pending a re-check; The Formations Company (theformationscompany.com) returned HTTP 200 but the homepage focused on formation packages without surfacing ECCTA identity verification or ACSP status, so it was dropped per the named-niche-on-homepage rule; Crunch (crunch.co.uk) returned HTTP 200 but marketed accountancy and £100 company registration without ECCTA / ACSP / IDV language at the homepage level, so it was dropped; Mazars (mazars.co.uk) redirected to forvismazars.com/uk/en and was not verified for ECCTA / ACSP marketing on the redirected homepage, so it was dropped pending a re-check; BDO (bdo.co.uk) returned HTTP 403 on the date of writing and could not be verified, so it was dropped pending a re-check; Begbies Traynor (begbies-traynorgroup.com) returned HTTP 200 but markets corporate insolvency, business rescue and personal-insolvency services without ECCTA / IDV / ACSP language on the homepage, so it was dropped per the named-niche-on-homepage rule. GOV.UK and Goodwin Procter LLP are referenced in section 01 as primary regulator and legal-advisory citations rather than third-party solution providers.
Listed companies — manage your entry. If you are one of the providers above and anything here is wrong, missing, or out of date — or you'd rather not be listed — write to us. Removal within 24 hours; corrections within 7 business days. We do not contact listed companies first; we publish what your own public marketing claims and respond when you reach out. Email contact@aikraft.com.