You may have seen recent emails or news about upcoming Companies House reforms. In short, identity verification will soon become mandatory for all company directors and shareholders (persons with significant control, or PSCs).
This change is being introduced under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act and will apply to all UK companies.
From this autumn, anyone being appointed as a new director or shareholder will need to verify their identity before their details can be registered. For existing directors and PSCs, the process will roll out over a 12-month transition period, the ID checks must be completed before your annual confirmation statement is submitted — although it can be done earlier on a voluntary basis if you’d prefer to get it out of the way.
You can perform the check yourself by following Companies House guidance and by creating a GovOne account. We’ve registered Black Fox as an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP), which means we’ll also be able to carry out identity checks for you directly, without you needing to go through the process yourself.
At the moment we’re still waiting on full instructions from Companies House about how the process will work in practice. We're also reviewing a few secure ID verification software tools — the kind that let you scan your passport and take a quick selfie and the system does the rest. Once we've finalised everything and trained our team, we’ll be in touch to get the process started.
Just so you’re aware: when it comes time to verify, it’s likely you’ll receive a secure email with a link. You’ll then upload a photo of your ID and take a selfie on a mobile phone and once the system has confirmed your identity, Companies House will send you a personal verification code. The code is personal to you and can be used for any companies you are a director/PSC of. We’ll ask you to pass that code on to us so we can make the necessary companies house filings for you.
Importantly, each person only needs to go through this process once. If someone is a director or PSC of multiple companies, a single ID check and personal code will cover all of them.
Nothing needs to happen yet. We’re keeping a close eye on the rollout and will guide you through everything when the time comes.