The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms

The confirmation statement is the smallest UK filing obligation and carries one of the more serious consequences for neglect. That combination makes it the one most often forgotten.

What it does

It confirms that the information Companies House holds about your company is accurate as at a given date:

• Registered office address.
• Directors and, where applicable, the company secretary.
• Shareholders and share capital.
• People with significant control.
• The company's registered activity classification.

There is no financial information in it. It replaced the old annual return and it is genuinely a confirmation exercise rather than a report.

It is a third calendar

A UK company therefore runs three independent filing cycles:

1. Annual accounts to Companies House, on the accounting reference date cycle.
2. The Corporation Tax return to HMRC, with payment due earlier.
3. The confirmation statement to Companies House, on its own review period.

Three deadlines, two organisations, no shared dates. Directors who track one and assume it covers the rest are the ones who receive the letters.

The consequence is different in kind

Missing the accounts deadline costs money automatically. Missing the confirmation statement is not primarily financial — it can lead to the company being struck off the register, and to prosecution of the directors.

Being struck off is a serious operational event. The company ceases to exist, its assets can pass to the Crown, and its bank accounts are frozen. Restoration is possible but expensive and slow.

Because there is no immediate financial penalty prompting action, this obligation drifts more easily than the others.

Check before you confirm

The statement is a confirmation, which means you are asserting the register is right. Confirming details you have not checked is a poor habit that eventually confirms something inaccurate.

Before filing, review each item: has a director resigned, has the registered office moved, have shares been issued or transferred, has a shareholder crossed the significant control threshold?

Share changes are the usual gap

Officers and addresses are visible changes that someone tends to notice. Share transactions are not, and they are where registers most often fall behind.

An allotment of new shares, a transfer between existing shareholders, a change in share class rights — each has its own notification, and each can move someone across the significant control threshold without anyone framing it that way. A shareholder moving from 20 per cent to 30 per cent has become a person with significant control, and the register should say so from that date.

For a company that has never issued shares beyond incorporation this is a non-issue. For one that has brought in a partner, issued shares to a key employee or bought out a founder, it is the first place to look before confirming anything.

Update on the event, not at the deadline

Most changes should be notified when they happen through their own filings — a director appointment, a change of registered office, a change in people with significant control.

The confirmation statement then confirms a register that is already correct. Using it as an annual catch-up means the register was wrong for the intervening months, which is itself a compliance failure and can matter in due diligence.

Related guides: Filing annual accounts with Companies House, Forming a UK limited company and UK Corporation Tax: rates, deadlines and payment.

An evidence-led way to apply this guidance

The useful question in The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms is not simply whether a rule exists. For The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms, the file must prove the facts that make the rule apply. Start the The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms working by writing down the legal trigger, accounting period, registration date, filing deadline and payment date. Then tie each The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms conclusion to UTR or company record, dated notices, ledgers, bank evidence and submission receipts. That article-specific exercise separates a defensible The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms position from one built around a label, a memory or a copied rate.

The legal starting point for The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms is the Companies Act 2006 and current Companies House filing rules. The operational check for The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms belongs with Companies House and HMRC. Read the instrument, current guidance and actual transaction together for The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms: guidance explains administration, but it does not rewrite the law or repair missing evidence.

No decorative rate. The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms is primarily a classification and evidence question, so this case file uses amounts to demonstrate the decision without inventing a percentage that the governing rules do not supply. That restraint is deliberate for The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms: an irrelevant percentage would make the page look detailed while making the advice less reliable.

Two worked case files

Worked example 1 — build the company-record control before submission. For a file concerning The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms, assume the records show GBP 950,000 as the company-record control total, GBP 80,000 as the items supported in a separate statutory filing, and GBP 35,000 as the corrections approved before submission. The balance represented by the current filing pack for The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms is therefore GBP 835,000:

WORKING 1 GBP 950,000 - GBP 80,000 - GBP 35,000 = GBP 835,000

The arithmetic is the easy part of The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms. The The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms judgement sits in the accounting period, approval date, identity of the filer and agreement to the statutory registers, including why GBP 80,000 and GBP 35,000 were removed. If any The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms answer is weak, keep the amount in the exception list rather than forcing it into a filing, resolution or account.

Worked example 2 — reconcile the approved filing pack. For The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms, assume GBP 900,000 as the directors’ approved submission total, GBP 150,000 as the amounts or records already accepted, and GBP 45,000 as the documented post-balance-sheet items. The open item requiring Companies House follow-up for The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms is GBP 705,000.

WORKING 2 GBP 900,000 - GBP 150,000 - GBP 45,000 = GBP 705,000

For The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms, place the GBP 900,000 directors’ approved submission total, the GBP 150,000 support for the amounts or records already accepted, and the GBP 45,000 schedule for the documented post-balance-sheet items beside the final GBP 705,000 balance. A The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms reviewer should be able to move from source evidence to control total, from control total to decision, and from decision to the submitted figure without a hidden spreadsheet or oral explanation.

The final quality-control questions

• Has the file for The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms identified the controlling law and the version effective for the relevant date?
• Are the The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms assumptions visibly labelled and separated from enacted rates, thresholds and deadlines?
• Do the GBP 835,000 and GBP 705,000 results reconcile to source evidence and the general ledger?
• Is every The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms exception assigned to a person and date rather than buried in a note?
• Has the client or responsible officer approved the The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms facts before submission?

This is the standard that makes The UK confirmation statement and what it confirms useful in practice: the conclusion is stated, the law is named, the numbers can be recomputed, and the evidence survives after the person who prepared the file has moved on.

Sources

This guide is written against the official and clearly labelled professional references below. Rates, thresholds and portal procedures change between reviews, so open the primary source before relying on a figure.

• Companies House filing requirements

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