Company Secretarial Services Explained

Company secretarial services are the outsourced administration of a company's statutory obligations — the filings, the registers, and the records that Companies House and the Companies Act require. If you're a director of a small UK limited company, you have three realistic routes: do it yourself, add it to your accountant's engagement, or engage a dedicated company secretarial provider. They cost very different amounts and cover very different things.

The frustrating part when you start researching this is that almost every page ranking for the term is written by a firm selling the service. This guide sets out what the work actually consists of, so you can price the routes against each other and decide which one fits.

You Are Not Legally Required to Buy This

Start here, because it reframes the decision. Section 270(1) of the Companies Act 2006 is one sentence: "A private company is not required to have a secretary."

Only public companies must have one — section 271 says simply "A public company must have a secretary."

So for a private limited company, engaging company secretarial services is a practical decision about time, risk and competence — not a legal obligation. What has not gone away is the underlying work. Removing the requirement to appoint a secretary didn't remove any filing duty; it moved responsibility for those duties onto the directors. There's a fuller breakdown in our guide to what the company secretary role covers.

What the Work Actually Consists Of

Before comparing quotes, know what you're comparing. Company secretarial work splits into four groups, and providers vary enormously in how many they cover.

1. Recurring statutory filings. The annual confirmation statement (CS01) and the annual accounts. Both have fixed deadlines and both attract consequences for lateness — accounts especially, where late filing penalties escalate with the delay.

2. Event-driven filings. These arrive unpredictably and each has its own deadline: appointing or removing a director, changing the registered office, changing the company name, allotting shares, registering a charge. This is where self-filers most often slip, because there's no annual reminder for an event you didn't plan.

3. Statutory registers and records. The register of members — the one statutory register still kept by the company itself — plus copies of any charge instruments, board minutes and resolutions. These live with the company, not at Companies House, and they're the part most commonly neglected because nothing chases you for them. (The register of directors and the PSC register moved to Companies House on 18 November 2025 and are no longer kept locally. The company's own register of charges went earlier still, repealed in 2013; what remains is the s.859P duty to keep copies of the charge instruments available for inspection.)

4. Document production. Share certificates, dividend vouchers, board resolutions, stock transfer forms. Needed at the moment of a transaction, and needed to be correct.

The Three Routes Compared

	Self-filing	Accountant add-on	Dedicated cosec provider
Recurring filings	You file	Usually included	Included
Event-driven filings	You file	Often ad-hoc / extra fee	Included
Registers maintained	You maintain	Frequently not covered	Included
Document production	You produce	Sometimes, on request	Included
Companies House fees	You pay directly	Usually passed through	Usually passed through
Typical cost driver	Your time	Bundled in annual fee	Per company, per year
Fails when	You forget an event filing	You assume registers are covered	Cost outruns the value at small scale

The gap worth staring at is the registers row. A common and expensive assumption is that "my accountant handles Companies House" means the statutory registers are being maintained. Frequently it means the confirmation statement and accounts are filed, and nothing else. Ask the question explicitly, and ask specifically about the register of members — since 18 November 2025 the only statutory register the company itself keeps.

What Companies House Charges You Regardless

Whichever route you pick, the statutory fees are the same — they're paid to Companies House, not to a provider. Per the published Companies House fee schedule (updated 2 July 2026):

Filing	Online	Paper
Confirmation statement	£50	£110
Incorporation	£100	£124
Change of company name	£20	£30
Voluntary strike off	£13	£18

Annual accounts carry no filing fee. Most event-driven filings — appointing a director, changing the registered office — are free. So the recurring statutory cost for a typical dormant or simple trading company is £50 a year. Anything above that is what you're paying for someone's time and judgement.

That's the number to hold in your head when you read a quote. The question isn't "is this cheap?" — it's "is the time and risk this removes worth the difference over £50?"

When Outsourcing Genuinely Earns Its Fee

Some situations make a strong case for handing this over:

• Share transactions with outside parties. Allotments to investors, transfers with consideration, and anything involving multiple share classes carry real consequences if the paperwork is wrong. This is judgement work, not admin.
• Corporate structures. Groups, holding companies, and companies with corporate shareholders generate filings a first-time self-filer won't anticipate.
• A history of missed deadlines. If you've already had a late filing penalty, the fee buys a process rather than a favour.
• You genuinely won't do it. An honest assessment. Statutory records that exist in principle and not in fact are worse than paying someone.

When Self-Filing Is the Better Call

• One or two straightforward companies with a single share class and no share activity.
• Dormant SPVs. A dormant company's annual cycle is simplified accounts plus a £50 confirmation statement. Paying a professional fee per company per year for that is expensive relative to the work.
• You already have the deadlines under control. If you know your accounting reference date and your confirmation statement date, the recurring half of the job is largely solved.
• Predictable, low-event companies. The risk in self-filing concentrates in event-driven filings. If nothing happens, there's little to miss.

If you're running several companies, the arithmetic tilts further toward self-filing with proper tooling, because professional fees scale per entity while a system doesn't. Our guide to managing multiple companies on Companies House covers the mechanics.

Questions to Ask Before You Engage Anyone

1. Is the register of members maintained — and the minutes and charge-instrument copies with it — and will I get a copy? (The single most important question.)
2. Are event-driven filings included, or billed separately when they arise?
3. Who pays the Companies House fees — is the quote inclusive?
4. Are share certificates and dividend vouchers produced, or do I still do those?
5. What happens if a deadline is missed — who carries the penalty?
6. If I leave, do I receive the register and the records in a usable form?

Question 6 catches people out. The register of members and the records kept alongside it are your company's, not the provider's. Confirm you can take them with you.

Key Takeaways

• A private company is not required to have a secretary (s.270) — only public companies are (s.271). The duties remain with the directors either way.
• The work splits into recurring filings, event-driven filings, registers, and document production. Providers differ most on the middle two.
• Statutory Companies House fees are identical on every route — £50 for an online confirmation statement, nothing for accounts or most officer changes.
• Ask explicitly whether the register of members and the records kept alongside it are maintained. "We handle Companies House" often means filings only.
• Outsourcing earns its fee on share transactions, group structures, and where deadlines have already been missed. Self-filing wins on simple, low-event, and multi-company-at-scale.

How CompanyMinder Helps

CompanyMinder is the self-filing route with the process built in. It tracks every filing deadline across all your companies, keeps your register of members current as share events happen, and generates the share certificates, dividend vouchers and board minutes you'd otherwise pay for individually — so choosing to keep the work in-house doesn't mean keeping it in your head. Documents are produced from your own register rather than retyped, and your records stay exportable and yours.

A Note on Scope

This is general guidance based on the published Companies Act 2006 and the current Companies House fee schedule. Fees change — check the GOV.UK schedule for the position on the date you file. Share transactions involving outside investors, multiple share classes, or group structures can turn on facts specific to your company; take advice from an accountant or solicitor where the consequences are material. It is not legal or tax advice.

Sources

• Companies Act 2006, s.270 — Private company not required to have secretary
• Companies Act 2006, s.271 — Public company required to have secretary
• GOV.UK — Companies House fees
• GOV.UK — Confirmation statement guidance