UK Companies House is the official government business in the United Kingdom, an executive agency operating under the remit of the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
Through its public register, Companies House provides access to a wide range of data — mostly free of charge — on companies, officers, and people with significant control, amongst other online services.
Companies House data is an essential component of the KYB process, helping analysts conduct customer due diligence (CDD) on potential customers — investigating persons of significant control, searching for directors, limited companies, or even just performing a company check to verify the incorporation date of a company.
Make no mistake: companies house data company data has immense value. However, the platform’s usability can pose challenges, with significant shortcomings in essential features. For instance, its limited company search tool, and the fact that data is stored in image format.
The result? Extracting information becomes a time-consuming task, often resulting in missed opportunities for valuable insights.
In this guide, we’ll look at what Companies House is, what company information you can access and how to conduct a company search on Companies House.
The UK has robust AML (anti-money laundering) and CTF regulations that impose obligations on firms to conduct customer due diligence, report suspicious transactions, and implement internal controls to mitigate the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing.
To do so, companies must use reliable, independent company data sources for KYC and KYB checks: official government registries, reputable commercial databases, and reliable media sources to check companies thoroughly.
One of the best ways of doing this is by using UK Companies House.
Companies House is the official public register of companies in the United Kingdom. It has various functions, including:
The UK public register features various company types, each with distinct characteristics:
Companies House gives you access to lots of company data:
Basic company details like the company's name, company number, company status, registered office address, date of incorporation, and company type (e.g., private limited company, public limited company).
Information on company directors, secretaries, and other officers, including their names, dates of birth, nationality, occupation, and any former names.
Financial records, including annual accounts and reports. These offer insight into a company's financial health, performance, and profitability and help businesses make informed decisions.
Information on the company's share capital structure, types of shares issued, nominal value, and associated rights is provided. Shareholder details, their holdings, and ownership changes.
Companies must file annual returns (or confirmation statements) with Companies House, updating information on officers, shareholders, registered office addresses, and more, ensuring transparency and compliance.
A comprehensive and chronological filing history of all documents submitted by the company to Companies House. This record includes changes in company details over time, offering a clear picture of the company's evolution.
[Want to see the documents available at Companies House? Click this link to learn more!]
Company data on a public registry is only as accurate as the information that companies provide.
Companies House relies on businesses to submit accurate information, on time. And because Companies House doesn’t verify the accuracy of filed information, inaccurate information can still be published — a source of intense frustration for KYB analysts trying to conduct a company search.
There are certain loopholes within Companies House that facilitates inaccurate information.
There are concerns about "phoenixing", where businesses run up debts and re-establish themselves under a new company name to avoid creditors.
Some companies shorten their accounting period by 1 day, receiving from Companies House three further months to file — all without transgressing the rules.
We’ve seen cases of identity fraud, where people are registered as directors or beneficial owners of companies they’ve never heard of. Proper identification and verification of company officials and shareholders is critical.
SIC codes are not regularly revised, and sectors are often categorised under large umbrellas. Fraudulent companies may exploit the lack of stringent regulations around SIC codes to obscure their true nature of business by selecting a code loosely fitting their operations and avoiding immediate scrutiny or detection.
[Learn more by clicking this link!]
The time it takes for Companies House to update company information depends on the submission type. Updates filed online are usually processed within 24 hours. If you submit changes via paper forms, it typically takes roughly 7 to 10 days for the updates to be reflected on the public record.
Companies House offers a service called ‘Follow’ which sends you free email alerts of company transactions, telling you instantly what information has been filed — as soon as Companies House has accepted it.
The email alert includes a link to the filing history of the company you’re following, where you can download a copy of the document — for free.
Kyckr is a one-stop shop for 300+ business registries worldwide. Our easy-to-use API will let you autofill your case records with normalised structured data into your chosen workflow management system — and only from government-approved sources. With Kyckr, you can identify a UBO in seconds, and enjoy expert support from a team of dedicated AML professionals. Speak to our team to learn more.
There are several AML supervisors in the UK, including the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), and the Gambling Commission. The Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision (OPBAS) oversees the AML supervision of legal and accountancy service providers.
Regulated entities onboarding business customers must do the following:
Regulated entities need to understand the following information to conduct customer due diligence:
· The business’s full legal name.
· Registration number.
· Registered address.
· Nature of business activities.
· Proof of existence and legal status (e.g. certificate of incorporation).
· Beneficial owner names, dates of birth, nationalities, addresses, and identification numbers.
A dormant company is a company that has had no significant accounting transactions during its financial year. This means it hasn't conducted any business activities, made any profit or incurred any expenses, aside from specific exemptions like payment for shares taken by subscribers to the memorandum of association, fees paid to Companies House for a change of company name, the re-registration of a company, or filing annual returns.
SIC codes (Standard Industrial Classification codes) are numerical codes used to categorise and classify businesses based on their primary economic activity.
Each SIC code corresponds to a specific industry or sector, allowing for consistent classification across different organisations. However, these codes often cover broad categories such as retail sale and mail order houses, which may not adequately represent modern sectors influenced by technological advancements.
But they’re not regularly revised, and sectors are often categorised under large umbrellas. Fraudulent companies may exploit the lack of stringent regulations around SIC codes to obscure their true nature of business by selecting a code loosely fitting their operations and avoid immediate scrutiny or detection.
WebCHeck is an online service that allows users to search for and access company information about businesses registered in the UK. Through WebCHeck, you can:
WebCHeck is a valuable tool for anyone needing to verify company details, conduct due diligence, or keep track of business entities for legal or business purposes.
