Companies House Late Filing Penalties: Complete Guide to Avoiding Fines in 2026

Companies House issued around 318,000 late filing penalties in the year to April 2025. If you're a UK company director who files your own accounts, you're one missed deadline away from a £150 fine — or £1,500 if you let it slide beyond six months.

This guide covers the exact penalty amounts, how doubling works for repeat offenders, why technical rejections near the deadline catch directors out, and the practical steps that actually prevent penalties.

Exact Penalty Amounts for Late Filing

Penalties are automatic. Companies House no longer sends paper reminders — only email reminders, and only if you've registered for them. Miss the deadline by even a day and a penalty applies; Companies House sends the penalty notice once the late accounts are filed, and the amount depends on how late they were — the longer you wait, the bigger it gets.

Private companies and LLPs:

How late	Penalty
Up to 1 month	£150
1–3 months	£375
3–6 months	£750
Over 6 months	£1,500

Public companies (PLCs):

How late	Penalty
Up to 1 month	£750
1–3 months	£1,500
3–6 months	£3,000
Over 6 months	£7,500

These amounts come directly from Companies House's official penalty schedule. The penalty applies to annual accounts only — confirmation statements carry different consequences (covered below).

How Doubling Works for Repeat Offenders

File late two years in a row and every penalty in the table above doubles. A one-month delay that cost £150 last year becomes £300 this year. The maximum jumps from £1,500 to £3,000 for private companies.

In 2024–25, Companies House levied 75,062 double penalties on companies that had filed late two or more years running — about a quarter of all the late filing penalties it levied that year. That repeat rate suggests the problem isn't ignorance — it's a lack of systems. Calendar reminders and Companies House's email reminders (two, if you've registered: about a month before the deadline and just before it) are not enough for directors juggling other responsibilities.

The doubling rule applies to accounts filed late in two successive financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2008. It resets if you file on time for a year — but by then, you've already paid the higher penalty.

Your Filing Deadlines

The deadline depends on your company type and whether you're filing for the first time:

Annual accounts:

• First accounts after incorporation: if the first accounting period is more than 12 months (usually the case for a new company), 21 months from the date of incorporation for private companies (18 months for PLCs), or 3 months after the accounting reference date (ARD) — whichever is later. If the first period is 12 months or less, the normal rule below applies
• Subsequent accounts: 9 months after the ARD for private companies, 6 months for PLCs

Confirmation statement:

• Due at least once every 12 months from incorporation (or from the date the last confirmation statement was made to)
• You have 14 days after the review period ends to file
• Filing fee: £50 online, £110 by paper (as of February 2026)

Your specific deadlines are on your company's page at Companies House. Search for your company number to see exactly when each filing is due.

Why Late Filing Happens (Even to Careful Directors)

Three patterns come up again and again in the penalty appeals reviewed by Companies House's independent adjudicators:

1. Technical rejections near the deadline

Companies House rejects accounts that don't meet the filing requirements — for example, a balance sheet that isn't signed by a director or doesn't show the director's printed name. If your filing is rejected a day before the deadline, you may not have time to correct and resubmit before the penalty clock starts.

The fix: file at least two weeks before your deadline. This gives you time to correct rejections without crossing into penalty territory.

2. Confusion about which deadline applies

Directors with a new company often don't realise their first filing deadline differs from subsequent years. A company incorporated on 1 March 2025 with a 31 March ARD has a 13-month first accounting period ending 31 March 2026. Its first accounts are due by 1 December 2026 (21 months from incorporation) — a month earlier than the 31 December 2026 that the usual 9-month rule would suggest. The next year's deadline is 31 December 2027 (9 months after the 31 March 2027 ARD). Miss that shift and you're late.

3. Dormant company oversight

Dormant companies still need to file annual accounts (simplified dormant accounts) and a confirmation statement each year. Directors with SPV structures or holding companies often assume dormant means no obligations. It doesn't — the same penalty schedule applies.

What Happens If You Don't File at All

The consequences escalate beyond penalties:

• Company struck off: Companies House can start proceedings to strike your company off the register if you persistently fail to file. It will write to the company twice, then publish a "First Gazette" notice giving two months' warning, then strike the company off and publish a final notice in the Gazette, at which point the company is dissolved. The statutory minimum is roughly 3 months from the first letter.
• Personal liability: Directors can face prosecution for failing to file — not filing your accounts or confirmation statements is a criminal offence, with convictions leading to fines and criminal records.
• Credit impact: Overdue filings are flagged on your company's public record. Business credit agencies such as Creditsafe update company credit scores from the accounts filed at Companies House and advise making sure correct information is filed there every year — and other businesses use company credit reports to decide whether to offer you credit and on what payment terms.

How to Appeal a Late Filing Penalty

You can appeal, but success rates are low. Companies House only accepts appeals based on circumstances genuinely beyond your control — and the bar is high.

Appeals that almost never succeed:

• "My accountant didn't file on time" — the director is legally responsible, not the accountant
• "The company is dormant" — dormant companies have the same filing obligations
• "I didn't know the deadline" — ignorance is not accepted as a reason
• "I couldn't afford an accountant" — financial difficulty doesn't waive filing requirements
• "I was abroad" — overseas residence doesn't change UK filing deadlines

Appeals that may succeed:

• A serious medical emergency immediately before the deadline (with evidence)
• Natural disaster or fire that destroyed records days before filing was due
• A Companies House system outage — for example, maintenance extended at short notice — while you were trying to file on the deadline date (with evidence)

Appeal as soon as you can — Companies House accepts one appeal against each penalty notice. If its late filing penalties team rejects it, you can ask the Senior Casework Unit to review the decision, and after that an Independent Adjudicator can review how your case was handled — but cannot override the registrar's decision.

Details on how to appeal are on the GOV.UK late filing penalties page.

Five Steps to Avoid Late Filing Penalties

1. Know your exact deadlines. Check your company's filing deadlines at Companies House right now. Write them down. If you have multiple companies, list every deadline for every entity.

2. File at least two weeks early. This is the single most effective step. Filing early gives you a buffer for technical rejections, authentication code problems, and unexpected errors. There is no penalty for filing early. If you're already running short on time, you may be able to extend your deadline before it passes.

3. Use Companies House WebFiling. Online filing is faster, cheaper (£50 vs £110 for confirmation statements), and gives you an immediate confirmation receipt. Paper filings can get lost in the post. For a comparison of what WebFiling does and doesn't do vs dedicated filing tools, see our guide to Companies House software filing.

4. Set multiple reminders. Don't rely on Companies House's email reminders alone (and you only get them if you've registered). Set calendar alerts at 60, 30, 14, and 7 days before each deadline. If you have multiple companies, you need reminders for each one. Use our free filing deadline countdown tool to estimate each company's deadlines and add them to your calendar (run it once for each company), and see our company secretarial software guide for more structural prevention if calendar reminders alone aren't cutting it.

5. Check your authentication code. You need a valid authentication code to file online. If you've lost it, request it well before your deadline — Companies House posts a reminder of your existing code to the registered office, which takes up to 10 working days.

If calendar reminders keep slipping through, see our guide on how to choose company secretarial software — the right tool replaces ad hoc reminders with multi-interval alerts and a dashboard across every company you run.

What About Confirmation Statements?

Confirmation statements don't carry the same automatic financial penalties as annual accounts. However, failure to file a confirmation statement can lead to:

• A financial penalty from Companies House — since the financial penalty regime started in May 2024 it can penalise a late confirmation statement after a warning notice, and issue a new penalty for each day it remains unfiled
• Your company being struck off the register
• Directors facing prosecution
• Your company's public record showing overdue filings

The deadline is firm: 14 days after your review period ends. The review period runs for 12 months from incorporation, or from the day after the confirmation date on your last confirmation statement. For a full breakdown, see our guide on what happens if your confirmation statement is overdue.

Use our free late filing penalty calculator to estimate the accounts penalty that would apply if you filed today, based on your deadline date.

Key Takeaways

• Penalties start at £150 and reach £1,500 for private companies (£7,500 for PLCs)
• Doubling kicks in if you file late two years running — a one-month delay becomes £300
• File at least two weeks before your deadline to allow for technical rejection corrections
• Dormant companies face the same penalties — there is no exemption
• Appeals rarely succeed unless the circumstances were genuinely beyond your control
• Check your deadlines at Companies House now — don't wait for the reminder email

CompanyMinder tracks your confirmation statement and accounts deadlines and emails reminders before each one — 7 and 1 day ahead on the free plan, and 30, 14, 7 and 1 day ahead on the Director plan, where you can also record each officer's identity verification status. You still file with Companies House yourself, but the deadlines above become much harder to miss.

Sources

• Late filing penalties — GOV.UK
• Companies House company search