If you run a UK limited company and haven't looked closely at Companies House services recently, the past six months have brought a cluster of changes that are worth understanding properly. Some are administrative — the kind of thing you can delegate cleanly and forget about. Others require personal action from directors themselves, and they can't be outsourced.

We're an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP), which means we handle Companies House filings directly on behalf of our clients. So we've been close to these changes as they've landed. What follows is our practical read on what has shifted, what it means for your company, and where the real risk of non-compliance tends to hide.

For many years, directors could file their annual accounts and Company Tax Return together through HMRC's online service — a single submission that covered both Companies House and HMRC in one step. That service closed on 31 March 2026.

From 1 April 2026, HMRC requires commercial software to file Company Tax Returns. There is no like-for-like replacement through a free government portal. The only exceptions are companies filing in Welsh or those with a genuine reasonable excuse for using paper — a narrow category that most businesses won't qualify for.

The practical implication is straightforward: if you or your previous accountant were relying on the free HMRC online service, that route no longer exists. You either need commercial filing software or — far more commonly for SMEs — an accountant who handles the submission through their own professional platform.

It's worth being clear that Companies House accounts can still be filed in multiple ways, including paper and commercial software. The change is specifically to the Corporation Tax Return side of the joint submission. But if you were using the joint service for both, you'll need to revisit your process regardless.

This is one area where the administrative overhead of running a limited company has quietly increased. For clients who work with us, nothing changes — we handle the filing as part of the engagement. But for directors who were managing their own CT filing through the HMRC portal, the deadline to move to a different approach has already passed.

From 18 November 2025, all company directors and people with significant control (PSCs) are required to verify their identity with Companies House. This isn't a Companies House services change that can be delegated to your accountant — it requires personal action from each individual director.

Verification is done through GOV.UK One Login, the government's shared identity platform. There are three ways to complete it: via the GOV.UK One Login app using a smartphone and a valid identity document, by answering security questions online, or in person at a Post Office.

Once verified, Companies House issues a unique personal code that links your verified identity to your Companies House roles. This code is what connects the verification to your directorship — it needs to be provided when you file, or when an agent such as an ACSP files on your behalf.

The scale of the rollout has been significant: over one million people had already verified their identity through GOV.UK One Login by April 2025, well before the November deadline made it mandatory. That suggests the infrastructure is reasonably robust, but our experience with clients is that the process can catch people out if they don't have the right identity documents to hand or if their details don't match records precisely.

If you're a director who hasn't yet verified, it's worth doing this promptly. Companies House is increasingly firm about compliance, and the verification requirement is tied to the broader transparency agenda that has been driving reform at the register for the past few years.

In March 2026, Companies House suspended its online filing service after a security issue was identified — one that had allowed unauthorised changes to personal details and account uploads. Business forums were quick to react, with directors expressing frustration about the disruption to filing timelines and genuine concern about the integrity of the register.

The suspension has since been resolved, but it's worth reflecting on what the episode illustrates about the current state of Companies House services. The register is in the middle of a significant modernisation programme — identity verification, new transparency requirements, tighter anti-fraud controls. That's mostly a positive direction. But it also means the infrastructure is in flux, and disruptions like this are more likely during a period of active overhaul than during a period of stability.

For directors who self-file, a service suspension at a critical filing window creates real problems. Confirmation statement deadlines don't move automatically, and demonstrating that a Companies House outage constitutes a reasonable excuse for late filing is not always straightforward.

This is one of the quieter arguments for using an ACSP or professional agent for your Companies House filings: firms that file at scale tend to know quickly when there's a system issue, they have established channels to get clarity, and they can advise on whether a late filing is genuinely defensible. Most directors filing once a year won't have that context.

Taken together, the changes to Companies House services in the past twelve months amount to a meaningful increase in the compliance burden for limited company directors — even if each individual change looks small in isolation.

There are three things we'd suggest reviewing now:

• Identity verification status. Every director and PSC should check whether they have completed GOV.UK One Login verification and received their unique personal code. If you're unsure, log in to the Companies House service and check your account status.
• Corporation Tax filing process. If you were using HMRC's free joint filing service, confirm with your accountant how your CT600 will be submitted going forward. This should have been addressed before the March 2026 deadline, but if it wasn't, it needs resolving immediately.
• Confirmation statement schedule. Know when your next confirmation statement is due. With the WebFiling disruption earlier in the year, a few clients came to us having lost track of their filing calendar. It's a simple check, but missing a confirmation statement deadline creates unnecessary risk.

If you use an ACSP like OD Accountants to manage your Companies House obligations, the filing and calendar management are handled. The one thing we can't do for you is the personal identity verification — that genuinely requires the individual director to complete it themselves.