The confirmation statement is the annual filing that every UK limited company and LLP must submit to Companies House. It replaced the annual return in June 2016 and has been progressively expanded by subsequent legislation - most significantly the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA), which introduced identity verification and a strengthened content requirement that came into force across 2025 and 2026.
For accounting firms, the confirmation statement is one of the highest-volume recurring tasks in the practice. A medium-sized firm with 400 limited company clients files 400 confirmation statements a year, and the cost of missing even a small percentage of those deadlines is real - in penalties, in strike-off risk, and in client relationship damage.
This guide sets out the current regime in 2026: the deadlines, what the statement contains, the penalty position, and the operational approach that well-run firms use to manage the volume.
What the confirmation statement is
The confirmation statement is a periodic confirmation that the information held by Companies House about a company is accurate and up to date. It is not a substitute for filing changes during the year - director appointments, share allotments, and changes of registered office must still be reported as they happen via the appropriate event-driven forms. The confirmation statement says, in effect, "as of this date, the public record about this company is correct as confirmed by the company itself."
A nil-return confirmation statement is permitted where nothing has changed since the previous statement. Where information has changed and the relevant event-driven form has not been filed, the changes must be reported with the confirmation statement.
Filing deadlines and the review period
Every company has a review period that runs from one confirmation date to the next. The default is annual - the review period is twelve months - although companies may file more frequently if they wish, in which case the confirmation date is reset by each filing.
The deadline to file is fourteen days after the end of the review period. Miss this deadline and the company is in breach. Companies House can issue penalty notices, mark the company as overdue on the public register, and ultimately initiate compulsory strike-off proceedings if the position is not remedied.
What ECCTA changed
ECCTA introduced a series of reforms designed to improve the accuracy of the Companies House register. The confirmation statement is one of the principal vehicles for those reforms. The headline changes that affect filings in 2026 are:
- Confirmation of a lawful business activity using a registered SIC code, with stronger scrutiny of unusual or generic codes
- A registered email address for each company, used by Companies House for official communications
- Identity verification requirements for directors and persons with significant control, phased in across 2025 and 2026
- Strengthened powers for Companies House to query, reject, or annotate filings where information appears incorrect
- Public access to filed information continues, but with enhanced rights for individuals to suppress certain personal data
The information confirmed in the statement
A confirmation statement confirms the company's registered office, the location of the company's registers, the principal business activities by SIC code, the statement of capital (for companies limited by shares), trading status of shares (for public companies), the company's shareholders (typically a list at each anniversary), and the persons with significant control. From 2024 onwards it also confirms the registered email address, and from 2026 it sits alongside the ID verification status of relevant individuals.
Where any of these elements have changed during the review period, the changes are reported with the confirmation statement if they have not already been notified by an event-driven form.
Penalties for late or missing filings
Late filing of the confirmation statement is a criminal offence under section 853L of the Companies Act 2006. Directors can be personally liable for fines, and the company itself can be struck off the register if the position is not remedied. In practice, Companies House proceeds with reminders, then formal warnings, then strike-off notices, but firms should not rely on a long runway - once strike-off proceedings begin, the time to reverse the position is short.
For clients, the most visible consequence of strike-off is the loss of the company's assets to the Crown as bona vacantia. Bank accounts are frozen, trading is illegal, and restoration is a court process. Avoiding this outcome is one of the most basic obligations the firm owes its limited company clients.
Operational management at scale
A firm with hundreds of limited company clients cannot rely on diary reminders or spreadsheet trackers. The confirmation statement workload needs to live in the practice management system, with auto-populated deadlines, automated alerts to the engagement manager at fixed lead times, and a status board that surfaces overdue cases without anyone having to ask.
A practical operational model is to file every confirmation statement at least seven days before the deadline, with no exceptions. This buffer absorbs the small percentage of cases where a filing rejection requires a re-submission or where unexpected client information needs to be verified.
Common errors at filing
A handful of errors account for most rejected confirmation statements. Incorrect SIC codes (typically left as generic codes from incorporation) trigger Companies House queries. PSC information that has changed but not been reported triggers a rejection. The registered email address is missing or incorrect, particularly for older companies that have not previously been required to provide one. And share information is inconsistent with prior filings, often because a small share allotment was not properly recorded in the company's books.
A pre-filing check that reconciles the proposed confirmation statement against Companies House data, the firm's own client record, and the client's share register, catches most of these before submission.
Charging for confirmation statement work
Confirmation statement filing is sometimes treated as a no-cost service that comes with the engagement. For firms with high volumes, this is a meaningful margin leak. A modest fixed fee (a typical range is £75 to £150) is well within market norms and covers the time required to verify, prepare, and file the statement properly.
Where the firm provides registered office services or company secretarial work on retainer, the confirmation statement is normally included in the retainer scope. Be explicit in the engagement letter about which model applies to each client.
How Accupe manages confirmation statements
Accupe pulls every limited company client's confirmation date directly from Companies House and surfaces upcoming deadlines on Smart Boards with status colour coding. The Companies House integration auto-populates the statement content; the AI document analyser reads supporting client documents with source citation; e-signatures handle director approval; and Compliance Radar tracks filing status alongside AML and KYC indicators in a single per-client view. The firm sees the next thirty days of filings at a glance, and a missed deadline becomes a near-impossible failure mode rather than a recurring risk.