The confirmation statement

A confirmation statement is the annual filing that confirms your company details on the public register are still correct — directors, address, shareholders and people with significant control. It costs £50 online, must be filed at least once every 12 months, and you have 14 days after the review period ends.

Once a year, every UK company confirms that its public record is still correct. It takes minutes when the record is accurate — and turns into a strike-off notice when it is forgotten, which is a lot more expensive than the fee.

Note the fee if you have filed one before: it went up with the February 2026 review. Guides still quoting £13 or £34 are describing a world that no longer exists.

What you are actually confirming

Not much, and that is the point — it is a check, not a submission:

• Registered office address, and where the records are kept
• Directors and the company secretary, if there is one
• Shareholders and the shares they hold
• People with significant control — usually anyone holding more than 25%
• What the company does, as SIC codes

Nothing financial appears on it. No turnover, no profit, no bank details. A confirmation statement filed for a company that traded nothing looks identical to one filed for a company that turned over a million.

Changes that cannot wait for it

Some changes have to be reported when they happen rather than saved up for the statement — a new director, a director resigning, a change of registered office, a change in people with significant control. Share changes are the exception: those are reported on the statement itself.

In practice this is where most errors originate. A director leaves in March, nobody tells Companies House, and in November the statement confirms a board that has been wrong for eight months.

Filing it yourself

Entirely doable, and we would rather tell you how than pretend otherwise:

1. Find your review date. It is on the public register against your company, and it is not your accounting year end — the two cycles are unrelated.
2. Check the record before you confirm it. Directors, office, shareholders, people with significant control, SIC codes. Confirming something inaccurate is worse than filing late.
3. Report anything that changed, in the statement or separately depending on what it is.
4. File within 14 days after the review period ends and pay the £50 fee.
5. Diary next year's date immediately. This is the obligation people miss precisely because it is annual and undramatic.

Why it goes wrong

Almost never because the filing is difficult. It goes wrong because the statement is the one obligation with no natural trigger: no invoice, no tax bill, no accountant chasing it. It arrives on a date nobody remembers, for a company that may not have traded, and it is confirmed by silence rather than action.

Then a letter arrives about proposed strike-off. Assets of a dissolved company pass to the Crown — including the bank balance — and restoring it is a court matter. That is the actual downside behind a £50 filing.

What else is due in a company year

The confirmation statement is one of four separate cycles, and they do not line up:

• Confirmation statement — its own review date, 14 days after the review period ends to file.
• Annual accounts — 9 months after the end of the accounting period, to Companies House.
• Company tax return (CT600) — 12 months after the accounting period ends, to HMRC.
• Corporation tax payment — 9 months and 1 day after the period ends, so the money is due three months before the return.

Four dates, three of them derived from your accounting period and one from a date set when the company was registered. Keeping them in one place is most of what a company accountant is for.

Figures are for the tax year shown and change every April. They are general information, not advice — we check the current position for your circumstances before anything is filed.

Reviewed 19 October 2026.