An ACSP is an Authorised Corporate Service Provider: a firm registered with Companies House and authorised to verify people's identities on its behalf. Companies House keeps the register of who is authorised, and only a firm on that register can do it.

There are two ways to get your identity verified for Companies House. You can do it yourself, free, through GOV.UK One Login, or you can use an ACSP. Both routes end with the same thing: one 11-character Companies House personal code. directorverifications.com is an ACSP and will handle the complexities of your ID verification on your behalf.

More detail: what an ACSP verification service is, and our fuller guide to what an ACSP is and how to choose one.

The end result is identical. Both routes are acceptable, both are recognised by Companies House, and both finish with the same type of 11-character personal code, because Companies House issues the code either way - and it’s sent direct to your email inbox.

The difference is what each one asks of you. GOV.UK One Login is free, but it needs a One Login account, a supported smartphone, the government's identity app and a document that app will accept - and if it refuses you once, that is the end of the government route. There is no second attempt, and the Post Office option is not open to you either.

An ACSP such as directorverifications.com costs money and asks for none of that. No GOV.UK One account, no app, no Post Office, done remotely from any country, and a person to deal with if something goes wrong.

Our service costs £24.99 for standard, 24-48 hour service, and £39.99 for same day service, 7 days per week, as long as payment and your ID verification is uploaded to us before 5pm.

If the idea of the free route works for you, give it a go. People come to us when the free route does not work (which happens much more often than you would think), or when they need their 11-character code quickly, or when they don't want the huge hassle involved with doing it themselves.

Yes. directorverifications.com is an Authorised Corporate Service Provider registered with Companies House and authorised to carry out identity verification on its behalf. It is a trading style of Finovium Limited, a firm of accountants in West London.

If you would rather go through the process yourself through GOV.UK One Login, that route is free and perfectly okay. People choose us when the free government route does not work for them, or when they want it finished today, or they think the GOV.UK One route is too much hassle (which it usually is).

ECCTA is the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023. It's the law that gave Companies House its new powers and created the identity verification requirement, along with tighter rules on who may file and what Companies House will accept.

In practice, for most people it comes down to one thing: the individuals behind a company now have to prove who they are.

More detail: our ECCTA compliance guide.

The requirement falls on individual people, never on the company. All directors of UK companies have to verify their identities. So does every PSC, every LLP member, and every general partner of a Limited Partnership. Anyone who files documents at Companies House has to be verified as well.

Being overseas is not an exemption. Neither is being a non-executive, unpaid or a director of a dormant company.

By role: company directors, PSCs, LLP members and Limited Partnership partners.

Yes. The requirement is not limited to company directors. Every member of an LLP has to verify their identity, and so does every general partner of a Limited Partnership.

The process used by LLP members and Limited Partnership partners is the same one used by company directors, completed through one of the two different routes (the free GOV.UK One Login route or via an ACSP such as directorverifications.com), and it produces the same type of 11-character personal code.

More detail: why ID verification for LLP members is needed and why ID verification for Limited Partnership partners is needed.

Identity verification became a legal requirement for UK company directors on 18 November 2025, and Companies House commenced a transition period that closes on 18 November 2026. 6-7 million people have to have their IDs verified during this period.

For a company that already exists, that November 2026 date is rarely the date that matters. Companies House will not accept your company's confirmation statement until every director has verified, so your real deadline is your company's next confirmation statement date. You can look it up free on the public register: open your company's Overview page and read "Next statement date".

Verification itself can be done at any time, and it’s worth doing early rather than doing it under stress at the last minute in autumn 2026.

Yes, and your ID has to be verified before you can set up a new company. When a new company is registered, Companies House asks for the Companies House 11-character personal code of every director as part of the registration filing. No code means no company registration.

So if you’re forming a company, get everybody who’ll be a director verified before you try to incorporate, not afterwards. The same applies to anyone who’ll be a PSC.

This new rule catches people out who have left the formation to the last minute. Our Fast Track service is the usual answer: it’s a same day service when your payment and your identity document are both received before 5pm, seven days a week.

The company's confirmation statement will not be accepted, so one unverified director stops the whole filing. It is unlawful to act as a director without verifying, and continuing to act may be an offence that can lead to prosecution, disqualification and fines.

Companies House may also issue financial penalties at company level or at individual officer level, and may annotate the public register - which is visible to anyone who looks you up, including banks, customers and insurers.

PSCs are not exempt either. A PSC who does not verify and submit their code inside their own submission window may also be committing an offence.

PSC stands for Person with Significant Control. It’s Companies House's term for somebody who owns or controls a company, as opposed to somebody who runs it.

You are normally a PSC if any one of these is true:

• you hold more than 25% of the shares;
• you hold more than 25% of the voting rights;
• you can appoint or remove most of the board;
• you otherwise have significant influence or control over the company.

Your company's PSCs are already listed on the public register, so you can look yours up. If you own and run your own company, you are almost certainly both a director and a PSC of it.

Yes, and this is the part most people aren't aware of. A PSC verifies in exactly the same way as a director and receives exactly the same type of 11-character personal code.

What differs is how the code reaches Companies House. A director's code goes in the company's annual confirmation statement. A PSC's code is submitted separately, through a different Companies House service, inside its own 14-day submission window.

More detail: why ID verification for PSCs is needed, and the documents you need for a PSC personal code application, and our post on PSC identity verification and the two deadlines.

No. You verify once, and you are issued one 11-character personal code.

But that one code has to be submitted to Companies House twice: once as a director, in the company's annual confirmation statement, and again as a PSC, through a separate Companies House service. The two submissions have different deadlines, and you are not allowed to do them both at the same time.

This is what catches owner-managed companies out, because nothing about filing the confirmation statement suggests there is anything more left to do.

More detail: PSC identity verification: one code, two deadlines.

Companies House gives every PSC a 14-day window to submit their 11-character personal code. Which window you get depends on who you are:

• If you’re a PSC who is not a director of that company: you submit your personal code during the first 14 days of your birth month. Companies House's own example is that if you were born on 22 January, your window runs from 1 to 14 January. The day you were born makes no difference beyond naming the month.
• If you’re both a director and a PSC of the same company: you submit your personal code during the 14 days starting the day after the company's confirmation statement date.
• If you became a PSC after 18 November 2025: you submit your personal code when you're first added to the public register, or within 14 days of being added.

Filing the company’s confirmation statement early does not move any of these dates.

You do not need to work your own window out. Companies House publishes the exact 14 days for each PSC to file their 11-character personal code on the company's page on the public register. You can read it there.

More detail: PSC identity verification: one code, two deadlines.

Very often it will not. The free GOV.UK One Login route has been built around UK documents and UK addresses, and it frequently refuses non-UK passports and identity documents. This is the single most common reason people come to us to take care of their ID verification on their behalf.

And if you’re rejected (your ID cannot be verified) when using the GOV.UK One route, it’s the end of the government route. There is no second attempt, and you cannot fall back on the Post Office option or on the security questions instead, no matter what the guidance lists as being available. You will be locked out of GOV.UK One Login for an indeterminate period, often several weeks and sometimes several months, with no way to hurry it along.

We know this from firsthand experience as well as from our customers: when the government route would not verify our own director's identity, we rang the Companies House helpline and were told plainly that the only available route left was to use an ACSP.

Using an ACSP is an alternative and equally lawful route - and it’s usually a route that’s far easier and much less hassle than using the GOV.UK One Login route. We verify people holding non-UK documents every day, and you’ll end up with exactly the same type of Companies House 11-character personal code, because Companies House issues it the same way whichever route you choose; that is, Companies House will email your 11-character personal code directly to your inbox.

More detail: ID verification for non-UK citizen company directors, and our guide for directors with non-British passports.

Yes. We verify directors and PSCs living anywhere in the world, and it’s all done remotely. No UK address is needed, no UK financial history will be questioned, and nothing that has to be done in person in the UK.

You will not need a GOV.UK One Login account or the government's identity app at any stage.

Being overseas is not an exemption. If you are a director or a PSC of a UK company, you have to be verified wherever you live.

A refusal there does not stop you from getting verified - but it closes the government route to you. If the government route rejects you and fails to verify your ID, you do not get a second attempt, you cannot fall back on the Post Office option, and you’re locked out of GOV.UK One Login for an indeterminate period, often several weeks and sometimes several months. Using an ACSP is a separate, equally acceptable way of getting your ID verified, and you will not have to use the government app at all.

The GOV.UK One app refuses valid ID documents more often than people expect or believe: for example, if the photograph fails to be validated or does not quite match up to your selfie, or the ID document is not on its limited list of acceptable documents, or the security questions cannot be answered by someone without a long UK credit history.

Read what to do when Companies House ID verification fails.

Our standard service is £24.99 per person and is completed within 24 to 48 hours. Our Fast Track service is £39.99 per person and is guaranteed the same day when your payment and your identity document are both received before 5pm, seven days a week.

The price is per person whose identity we verify, not per company. Three directors means three verifications. The price you see is the price you pay - we do not have any hidden extras.

If our automated, AI-powered check cannot verify your ID, a member of our team reviews your documents by hand. That's included in the price - we'll never charge you twice.

Our guide to how much an ACSP costs compares our price with the rest of the market.

Our standard service is completed within 24 to 48 hours, and often sooner. Our Fast Track service is guaranteed the same day when your payment and your identity document are both received before 5pm, seven days a week.

More detail: the Fast Track same day verification service.

No. You do not need a GOV.UK One Login account at any stage when using our service, and you do not need to install the government's identity app on your phone. In fact, you do not need to install any app at all. That is the point of using an ACSP such as directorverifications.com.

You still receive exactly the same type of Companies House 11-character personal code at the end of the process, because it’s Companies House that issues the code the same way whichever route you choose; that is, Companies House will email your 11-character personal code directly to your inbox.

Only if your accountant is registered with Companies House as an ACSP. Identity verification can only be carried out by Companies House itself - through GOV.UK One Login, or by a registered ACSP - it is not something any professional adviser can simply do on your behalf.

Plenty of accountants are registered ACSPs. Plenty are not, and then they send their clients to an ACSP such as directorverifications.com instead. Ask your accountant about it.

We work with accountants, company secretaries and other advisers who are verifying people across several companies at once - see bulk director verifications for businesses and advisers.

Yes. We verify whole boards, and we work with accountants, company secretaries and advisers who are verifying people across a number of companies. Each person is verified separately in their own right and our pricing is per person.

More detail: bulk director verifications for businesses and advisers, and our guide to bulk director ID verification.

It’s an 11-character code, formatted XXX-XXXX-XXXX, that Companies House issues to you once your identity has been verified. It’s issued to you as a person, not to a company, it lasts for life, and the same code will be used on every company where you’re a director or a PSC.

Some people search for the code as a personal identification number. This is the same thing: the Companies House personal code.

More detail: the Companies House verification personal code, and our guide to the Companies House personal code.

You get it by having your identity verified first and there’s no way to obtain a code without being verified. Once you’re verified, Companies House issues the code and emails it to the address held for you.

You can have your ID verified by using the GOV.UK One Login or by using an ACSP such as directorverifications.com

If you’ve verified through us, we tell you as soon as it’s done. If the email from Companies House (with the 11-character personal code) doesn't arrive promptly, check your junk folder.

They are two separate steps, and it is worth keeping them apart, because only the second one has deadlines attached to it.

Verifying your identity is a one-off. You can do it at any time, today if you want, and do it either free of charge through GOV.UK One Login; or you can do it through an ACSP such as us. At the end of either route, Companies House issues you the same type of 11-character personal code, direct to your inbox.

Submitting the code to Companies House to comply with UK law is what happens later, and it’s the part with time limits attached to it.

As a director, your 11 character personal code must be submitted to Companies House in the company's annual confirmation statement - and the company can file this early, at any point it likes, so nothing forces you to wait for its due date.

As a PSC, you submit the same 11-character personal code again through a separate Companies House service, inside your own 14-day submission window.

Sounds complicated? Yes it is, and needlessly so. It’s the way the government designed the system.

People get caught out when they’ve verified their ID in good time and then miss one of the two submission dates. Or they leave their ID verification to the last minute and the GOV.UK One Login route rejects them and fails to verify their ID.

No. ID verification is a one-off. You’re issued one 11-character personal code, it's issued to you as a person, and it lasts for life.

The same 11-character personal code is used on every company where you’re a director or a PSC, or if you’re both director and PSC. You do not need to verify your ID again when you join another board or set up another company, and you do not have to verify again each year.

What can happen more than once is being ASKED for your 11-character personal code. Your company quotes it each time it files its confirmation statement. If you join another board, you use the same code again there. Each time, you’re simply handing over the code you already have – you’ll never need to repeat the ID verification process for a second time.