With the final deadline for ID verification at Companies House less than a month away, one in four company directors still not verified.

ID verification is mandatory for all directors on the Companies House register, with the initial transition period set to end on 17 November.

But one in four UK registered directors have not verified their identity yet with 807,000 individuals having already missed their ID deadline.

As of mid October,  a total of 4,144,344 directors and beneficial owners had completed their verification statements, leaving 25% of directors unverified, shows analysis of all ID registered directors at Companies House by Vaulex, a UK authorised corporate service provider (ACSP).

 This leaves 1.4m directors and beneficial owners with only four weeks to complete the process or face penalties and even court action, including over 10,000 overseas based directors.

The Companies House register now has a very clear green tick showing whether a director has been ID verified, immediately alerting the director’s status and the fact they have not complied with the mandatory transparency requirements.

For existing directors, the deadline is the company’s next confirmation statement, and the transition year ends on 18 November 2026. This has been telegraphed for months so it is difficult to see why so many directors are still ignoring the requirement.

There is no excuse for UK directors not to have completed the verification process as all were written to by Companies House informing them well in advance of their registration deadline. The standard notice period is 15 months prior to the state date of any rule change at the register.

Zak Ali, founder of Vaulex Group, said: ‘The dates are not abstract. Companies House has set one for every person on this list and written to them.

‘More than 800,000 have already gone past it, and Companies House says a person who misses the date may be committing an offence and may face a financial penalty, and that a note will be published against their name.

‘The company cannot file its confirmation statement until its directors have verified.’

The level of non-compliance was so startling and so many accountancy firms were listed as the registered office for these businesses that Vaulex has created a free ID verification checker tool designed specifically for accountants that shows which individuals at a particular client company still need to verify their identity.  

It is not only UK based directors who have failed to prove their identity as 10,925 company directors living abroad have not filed their documents as yet, the majority of whom are living in the UAE, US, Spain, France and Australia, Vaulex data showed.

There is also a conundrum for UK directors living abroad as the ID verification process does not work with old passports. Ali warned: ‘For the people living abroad the free route cannot always be used.’

Quick tips – not yet started?

1. Find the company’s confirmation statement date on the Companies House register – that is the deadline for every director.

2. Check who needs to verify and who already has completed.

3. Try Gov.UK One Login or Government Gateway first if you have a chipped passport. If not, organise verification through an ASCP provider, including authorised accountancy and law firms.

4. Once verified, provide the 11-character personal code for each role – with the confirmation statement for a directorship, and through the persons with significant control (PSC) verification service for a PSC role.

Useful links

Vaulex ID verification checker tool for accountants

Delay to ID verification for firms filing for clients | 21 Jan 2026

Tips on ACSP registration with Companies House | 15 Oct 2025