What a Confirmation Statement Is (It Isn't Optional)

Once a year, every UK limited company and LLP has to file a Companies House confirmation statement. The idea is simple: you're telling Companies House that what they have on file about your company still matches reality. Limited companies file it on a form called CS01, and LLPs use a slightly different version, LL CS01.

That covers a handful of facts about the company:

• the registered office address
• the SIC code (the number that describes what the business does)
• directors and anyone with significant control
• how much share capital you’ve got, if any
• shareholder details
• a registered email address, required since March 2024, though that one stays private

Some changes need their own form before the confirmation statement goes in. A resigned director, a new registered office, newly issued shares: that's TM01, AD01 and SH01. Share transfers work differently. There's no separate form for those, you just report them on the confirmation statement itself, along with any changes to your SIC code or statement of capital.

Confirmation statement cost

Filing online costs £50. By post it’s £110, and takes longer besides.

Small costs like this are exactly the kind of thing that's hard to track if your day to day banking doesn't show it clearly. Ampere surfaces every payment as it happens, so a fee like this one never gets lost in the noise.

You're only paying once per twelve-month payment period, no matter how many times you file within it. If something changes mid-year and you file a second statement to update it, that one's free.

Your payment period and your review period are two different clocks, and they don't always line up: the payment period runs twelve months from incorporation and can’t be changed, while the review period resets every time you file.

If you’re running two companies you're paying this twice over, since each one runs on its own clock.

The deadline itself runs on the review period, not the payment one: you get fourteen days after it ends to file. You’ve then got fourteen days after your review period ends to file. A company incorporated on 1 January needs its first statement filed by 14 January the year after, then it just repeats from there. If your details haven't changed, filing itself takes about fifteen minutes online.

Most companies file through WebFiling, which needs an authentication code Companies House posts to your registered office, working like your company's signature online. There's also a newer, simpler service, though it's limited to small private companies: a single shareholder, up to five officers, up to five people with significant control.

One more requirement sits alongside all of this - since November 2025, every director needs identity verification too, and Companies House won't accept the statement until that's done.

What happens if you don't file

There's no automatic fine for a late confirmation statement, unlike annual accounts, where the penalty is banded and kicks in automatically. It’s only small comfort, though.

Ignoring it completely is a criminal offence, and Companies House has a few ways to make that felt:

• a warning letter, then another, if nothing changes
• a financial penalty or a fine of up to £5,000 for directors personally
• the company struck off the register, with everything left in it, bank account included, becoming property of the Crown

Getting a company restored afterward is possible, but slow and not guaranteed.

None of this depends on whether you traded that year, a dormant company still has to file, and so does one that's not sending HMRC anything else either. LLPs work the same way. All that matters is whether the company still exists on the Companies House register.

Lenders and insurers check the public register when they assess a company, and a confirmation statement that's up to date is one less thing standing in your way.