If you’re an accountant, your clients’ directors and PSCs will be asking you about ID verification - and some of them have already been refused by GOV.UK One Login. You’ve two choices: register your firm as an ACSP (Authorised Corporate Service Provider)
and verify them yourself, or send them to an ACSP that does it for you.
This page sets out what doing the checks yourself really involves, and when it’s simpler to send clients to an ACSP.
Get verified for £24.99
· Get Fast Track, same day, for £39.99
What doing the checks yourself involves
To verify clients’ IDs for Companies House yourself, your firm has to register as an ACSP - and Companies House only registers a business that’s already supervised by a UK anti-money laundering supervisory body. That’s only the start.
Every check then has to meet Companies House’s six-step standard, and its own words are plain: "If your identity checks do not meet the required standard, we could suspend or stop your business". There are two ways to do it - an automated check using ID document validation technology, which most firms would have to buy in, or a check by a person, which needs two documents rather than one, and "If the evidence is being checked by a person, they must be trained in detecting false documents".
You also have to keep copies of the documents for seven years from the date you complete the checks.
When it’s simpler to send clients to an ACSP
For a lot of firms, the checks aren’t worth building in-house - especially for the clients who need them most.
Directors and PSCs who live outside the UK, or who hold non-UK passports, are exactly the people GOV.UK One Login tends to turn away. Once it has refused someone, there’s no second government route: they may be locked out of GOV.UK One Login for weeks or even months, and the Post Office route isn’t open to them either. An ACSP is the only way left to verify their ID.
If you only verify a handful of people a year, the technology, the training and seven years of record-keeping are a lot to take on for a small number of checks. And if a client’s confirmation statement date is close, they need someone who can verify them the same day.
How it works when you send clients to us
Each person requiring ID verification gets their own secure link via email. They upload their ID document and a photo of themselves - no app is needed, no GOV.UK One Login, no UK address needed, and any passport is okay (both biometric and machine readable), whichever country issued it.
It’s £24.99 per person, completed within 24 to 48 hours on weekdays, or £39.99 per person for Fast Track, completed the same day when the payment and the ID document both reach us before 5pm, seven days a week.
If our automated, AI-powered check cannot verify the ID, a member of our team reviews the documents by hand. That’s included in the price - we’ll never charge you twice.
We verify your client’s ID and submit their verified details to Companies House, and Companies House emails their 11-character personal code directly to their inbox. The confirmation statement stays with you, to file as you do now. If you’ve several people to verify at once, our bulk service for businesses and advisers
is set up for that.
Get verified for £24.99
· Get Fast Track, same day, for £39.99
Questions people ask
Do we have to register as an ACSP to get our clients verified?
No. Your clients can be verified by any ACSP, and there’s nothing for your firm to register. We verify each person and Companies House emails their personal code to them.
Can we verify some clients ourselves and send others to an ACSP?
Yes. Nothing stops a registered firm from sending some clients - overseas directors, say, or anyone GOV.UK One Login has refused - to another ACSP.
What does it cost to send a client to you?
£24.99 per person, or £39.99 per person for Fast Track, the same day. The price is the same whichever country issued the passport, and there’s nothing extra if our team has to check the documents by hand.
Will you file the confirmation statement for my client?
No. We verify your client’s ID and submit their verified details to Companies House. Companies House emails their personal code to them, and the confirmation statement stays with you.
