What is an ACSP Verification Service?

In short: an ACSP (Authorised Corporate Service Provider) is a firm that Companies House has authorised to verify people's identities on its behalf. directorverifications.com is a trading name of Finovium - and Finovium is an ACSP. We verify your ID, submit your verified information to Companies House, and Companies House emails your 11-character personal code - direct to your inbox. And that's the job done. It's £24.99 per person and takes 24 to 48 hours, or £39.99 for our Fast Track service - that's same day when your payment and your ID document both reach us before 5pm, seven days a week.

You don't have to use an ACSP to verify your ID. The GOV.UK One Login service is free and it's the government's own route. Many of our customers choose to use our service because the GOV.UK One Login service wouldn't verify their IDs; the government's service is built around UK documents and UK addresses, and once it's refused you and failed to verify your ID, there's no second government route to try. When that happens, the only route available is to use an ACSP such as directorverifications.com.

What an ACSP verification service actually is

Companies House is an executive agency of the UK government, sponsored by the Department for Business and Trade. It's the official registrar of companies, and it keeps the public register of every limited company in the UK.

An ACSP is an Authorised Corporate Service Provider. Companies House also calls them authorised agents, which is the plainer of the two names. It means a firm - usually an accountancy firm - that Companies House has authorised to provide corporate services to UK companies, including the ID verification of directors, PSCs (People with Significant Control) and LLP members.

Becoming an ACSP isn't a formality. GOV.UK sets the conditions plainly: the agent must always be registered with at least one Anti-Money Laundering (AML) supervisory body. directorverifications.com is a trading style of Finovium Limited, which is registered with and regulated by both Companies House and HMRC, and every ID check we run is recorded and kept for seven years, because Companies House requires ACSPs to do that too.

What the authorisation lets us do is one specific thing: verify your ID, to the standard Companies House sets, and tell Companies House we've done it. It doesn't let us do your filing. We don't submit your 11-character personal code to Companies House for you, and no ACSP will - that submission requirement will always be your task, and we'll show you exactly where it goes.

What ID verification costs with directorverifications.com, and what you get

	Standard	Fast Track
Price, per person	£24.99	£39.99
Turnaround	24 to 48 hours	Same day
Cut-off	None	Payment and ID document both received before 5pm
Days	Weekdays	Seven days a week
Human review if the automated check cannot verify your ID	Included	Included

Three things about that price, and they're worth saying plainly because nobody else does:

• The prices are per person whose ID we verify, not per company. Two directors mean two separate verifications. It makes no difference how many companies they're directors of - once verified, the same 11-character personal code can be used across all companies they're involved with for years to come (forever, in fact).

• The price you see is the price you pay - no 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.

Companies House doesn't set ACSP prices - every authorised agent sets its own, and they vary far more than you'd expect. When we checked the published prices in September 2026 they ran from about £25 to £150 and upwards per person, so our £24.99 price sits at the bottom of that range - and plenty of agents publish no price at all until you ask. Several also charge a good deal more if your passport isn't British: we found £74.99 advertised for a non-UK passport by a firm charging £24.99 for a British one. We charge the same £24.99 whoever you are and wherever in the world you live. There is more in our guide to how much an ACSP costs.

How our ACSP ID verification works, step by step

You sign up by clicking "Get verified for £24.99" on our website and paying for us to verify your ID. An email reaches your inbox automatically, usually immediately or within a minute or two.

You click "Start Verification" in that email, then follow the instructions to scan a government-issued ID document - a passport or a driving licence, for example - and taking a scan of your face. Our ID verification partner checks the document and the face scan against it. If the automated, AI-powered check cannot verify your ID, one of our team reviews your documents by hand instead, at no extra cost. Then we upload the completed and certified ID verification details to the Companies House ACSP portal.

Then, Companies House emails you your own 11-character personal code, direct to your inbox. This code is yours for life, and it covers every company you're a director or a PSC of.

You'll notice what isn't in the step-by-step list: no app to install on your phone, no GOV.UK One Login, no UK address needed, nothing for you to post. It's really much easier and simpler to use an ACSP such as directorverifications.com - we take the hassle out of verifying your ID.

ACSP or GOV.UK One Login: which route should you use?

There are exactly two ways to verify your ID for Companies House, and Companies House accepts either of them equally. The government route is free, and two things are worth knowing before you start it. Firstly, it's more difficult and more time-consuming, and therefore a good deal more hassle: it means downloading an app and setting up a GOV.UK One Login before anybody looks at your documents. And secondly, there's what happens if it doesn't work, because nobody warns you about that before you begin.

	GOV.UK One Login	An ACSP such as directorverifications.com
Cost	Free	£24.99 per person
GOV.UK One Login	Needed	Not needed
App on your phone	Usually needed	Never
Non-UK passport	ID verification often fails	Accepted
Living outside the UK	ID verification often fails	No UK address needed
Human review if the automated check fails	No	Included in the price
If it refuses you	There's no second government route available to you - no second chances are given	This rarely happens - and if it does, one of our team reviews your documents by hand automatically, at no extra cost. You don't have to ask.

Once the government's service has refused to verify you, that's the end of it. You don't get a second attempt at it, you may find yourself locked out of GOV.UK One Login for weeks or even months, and there's no other government route waiting behind it for you to attempt to verify your ID again. We know this at first hand: the government service failed to verify the ID of one of our own directors, he rang the Companies House helpline himself, and was told the only route left to him was to use an ACSP to verify his identity.

That's why most of our customers are here, and many of them hold non-UK passports or live outside the UK. It isn't that they wanted to pay - it's that the free route wouldn't accept them and, as such, they had no choice but to use an ACSP.

Who has to verify their ID, and by when

Everyone who runs or controls a UK company. Companies House's own list is wider than most people expect: a director; the equivalent of a director, which includes members, general partners and managing officers; a director of an overseas company registered in the UK; and a PSC - somebody who owns or controls the company rather than runs it.

The timing is where people come unstuck, because there isn't one date. If you're a director, GOV.UK says your 11-character personal code goes to Companies House as part of your company's next confirmation statement. If you're a PSC and not a director, it goes through a separate Companies House service called "Provide identity verification details for a PSC", within the first 14 days of your birth month. And if you're both a director and a PSC of the same company, which most owner-managers are, you submit the same code twice, on two different dates, through two different systems - and Companies House won't let you do both at once, which is an absurd piece of red tape.

Verifying your ID isn't tied to any of those dates, though, and that's a thing worth knowing. You can do it today. The deadlines apply to submitting your 11-character personal code afterwards.

How to check that an ACSP is genuinely registered

Anyone can put the letters "ACSP" on a website. Two checks are worth doing before you pay anybody, and neither takes long:

• Ask the firm which anti-money laundering supervisor it's registered with. Every genuine ACSP has one - for example, HMRC or one of the accountancy bodies - and none of them will mind being asked.

• Look the firm up on the list Companies House publishes. directorverifications.com is on the list as FINOVIUM LIMITED ACSP, supervised by HMRC. directorverifications.com is a trading style of Finovium Limited, a firm of accountants in West London. Two things are worth knowing before you lean on that list, though: agents appear on it only if they've asked to be published, so in Companies House's own words it may not include all agents that have registered as an ACSP; and being on it isn't a recommendation - Companies House does not endorse or recommend the agents on this list.

One thing you shouldn't expect, and it's worth explaining because it looks like a gap: a careful ACSP won't publish its ACSP registration number or its AML registration number on its website. Those numbers are exactly what somebody would want in order to pass themselves off as an authorised agent. Ask us, and check the published list.

What you shouldn't do is hand your passport details or money to a firm that won't answer your questions.

Frequently asked questions

Is an ACSP better than the free government route?

Not better, just different - but certainly easier, more straightforward and less hassle. Companies House treats the two identically in terms of the same type of 11-character personal code being issued, whichever route you choose. GOV.UK One Login is free, and for some people it works - but it needs a One Login and an app on your phone, and it turns a lot of people away. An ACSP is your only option when the government route won't verify your ID, and it's quicker and simpler even when it would - if you'd rather not install an app or gamble on whether your documents will be accepted.

Do I need to verify my ID again for each company I'm a director of?

No. You verify yourself, not each company. One 11-character personal code covers every company you're a director or a PSC of, and it lasts for life. What comes round again isn't the verification - it's being asked for the code.

Can you submit my personal code to Companies House for me?

No, and no ACSP can. We verify your ID and Companies House emails you the code directly; submitting it is your job, either in your company's confirmation statement if you're a director, or through the "Provide identity verification details for a PSC" service if you're a PSC. Which one applies to you is set out in full in our guide to director ID verification.

My passport isn't British. Can you still verify me?

Yes. Many of our customers hold non-UK passports, and a good many of them live outside the UK. What's more, you don't need a UK address to use our service.

What if the automated check can't verify my ID?

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.

How quickly can this be done?

Our standard service takes 24 to 48 hours. Fast Track is same day, seven days a week, as long as your payment and your ID document both reach us before 5pm.

Get verified for £24.99  ·  Get Fast Track, same day, for £39.99