What must a charitable company file at Companies House, and when?

England and Wales: This page sets out the position in full. Scotland: the same position — company law is reserved to Westminster, so nothing here changes north of the border. Northern Ireland: the same position again — company law applies UK-wide, with no separate Northern Ireland regime for any of it.

Must trustees verify their identity at Companies House?

Yes. In a charitable company limited by guarantee, the trustees are the directors under UK company law. Under Companies Act 2006 s.167M, a person must not act as a director unless their identity is verified, and the company must make sure of it. Companies House guidance applies the same to people with significant control. Building that into the charity’s own trustee checks is covered in check every trustee’s eligibility.

This has applied to new directors appointed since 2025-11-18. It is not a future change to plan for: it already applies today. If a founding trustee has not verified, incorporation or a Companies House filing involving them does not go through.

The rest of this page assumes the trustees have already approved the trustees’ annual report and the accounts.

For directors already in post before that date, SI 2025/1118 reg 4 sets a transition of 12 months. The company delivers an identity statement for each of them with its next confirmation statement in that period, not through a separate process.

So there is no single end date for existing trustee-directors. The date for your charity is its own next confirmation statement. The prohibition in s.167M reaches an existing director only once that statement is delivered, or its delivery period ends.

No Charity Commission guidance flags this duty for trustees. The duty comes from company law, which is why it is easy to miss. Incorporate at Companies House covers the same duty for a charity setting up now, rather than one already filing.

When are a charitable company’s accounts due at Companies House?

Accounts are due at Companies House on a different deadline from the Charity Commission’s. The two deadlines are easy to mix up because both count from the same point: your financial year end.

A charitable company is almost always limited by guarantee. It answers to company law and charity law at once, and to two regulators over the same financial year.

Companies House requires accounts within 9 months. Companies Act 2006 s.442, verbatim, sets it out as “nine months after the end of the relevant accounting reference period”. The count starts from the end of the accounting reference date. That date is fixed by the company’s own registration, not chosen freely each year.

A separate, different deadline applies to what you file with the Commission; file your accounts covers it. The confirmation statement is an annual Companies House filing that confirms the company’s registered details. It runs on a clock of its own, which belongs on its own line of the annual compliance calendar.

Only the Companies House deadline carries an automatic cash penalty. The Commission has no such fee-based penalty. When an annual return is late, the Commission steps up its regulatory action instead of making an automatic charge. What that can lead to is covered in what triggers a Charity Commission inquiry.

So a charitable company that files late faces a cash penalty from Companies House. From the Commission, it faces regulatory action rather than a charge. In England and Wales, late filing with the Commission is also an offence by the trustees under s.173 of the Charities Act 2011, covered on the file-your-accounts page linked above.

Will the same accounts satisfy both regulators?

Not necessarily. Companies House still lets a small company file a reduced document. That is a balance sheet alone, without the full profit and loss account or directors’ report. This is sometimes called “filing filleted accounts.” The accounts themselves are still prepared in full: the Charities SORP does not permit the use of FRS 102’s reduced-disclosure regime for small entities.

A charitable company must give the Commission a full SORP-compliant set of accounts and trustees’ annual report, whatever its size. So a small charitable company can lawfully file a reduced document at Companies House and still owe the Commission the complete version. Many charities file the full pack at both registries, to avoid keeping two versions of the same accounts. That is your choice, not a requirement of either regulator.

Are abridged and filleted accounts still allowed?

Yes, for now. A reform removing the abridged-accounts option at Companies House has been widely reported. Reading those reports, you would think it has already happened. It has not.

Companies House’s own transition plan confirms that the wider accounts reforms are still ahead and not yet in force. That includes removing the abridged-accounts option. The plan was updated the day before the research for this page was retrieved.

No date for that reform is given here. The date most often quoted could not be independently verified at source during the most recent check, so it is left out. Abridged and filleted accounts both remain available at Companies House today. If you read elsewhere that they have been abolished, that source is ahead of the current position.

With both registries filed, the next step is to understand what gets published, and by whom.

Common mistake: filing the same reduced document at both registries

It is one set of accounts, so it feels like one filing. Companies House still lets a small company file a reduced balance sheet alone. But the accounts are still prepared in full, because the SORP does not permit FRS 102’s reduced-disclosure regime for small entities. So the Commission needs the full document, whatever Companies House will accept.

Common mistake: assuming abridged accounts have already been abolished

The reform was widely reported as arriving in 2026. Companies House’s own transition plan defers it: the reforms are still ahead. This page does not print the date most often quoted for them, because it could not be independently confirmed at source. Filleting and abridgement remain available today.

Common mistake: trustees not verifying their identity

This duty comes from company law. Nothing aimed at charities tells trustees it applies to them. In a charitable company the trustees are the directors. Acting as a director without verified identity is an offence under s.167M, and it can block company filings that involve them.

Worked example

Saltmarsh Trust’s accounts are more than three months but not more than six behind the 9 months deadline. In that band, the company’s civil penalty is £750. Because the same thing happened the year before, that penalty is doubled.

Separately, every trustee who was a director at the end of the filing period commits the s.451 offence. The Act gives each of them a defence if they can prove they took all reasonable steps to get the accounts filed on time. Whether any of them could is a question for a solicitor.