The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCTA) is bringing in a raft of changes aimed at improving the integrity of the UK’s company registration system and reducing the risk of corporate entities being used to facilitate economic crime.
Provisions in the Act include more powers for Companies House to query information, stronger checks on company names, new rules for registered office addresses, and new lawful purpose statements. Alongside this, identity verification (IDV) for all directors and people with significant control (PSCs) of companies is becoming mandatory. The verification process is designed to deter people trying to incorporate and use companies for illegal purposes.
There is also a new system whereby third parties, including accountants, who want to provide IDV services for their clients or file at Companies House on behalf of clients, will have to register as Authorised Corporate Services Providers (ACSPs). Registration for ACSP status opened on 18 March 2025 and is ongoing.
If you simply want to be able to file information for clients, then you do not need to register as an ACSP yet, but you will have to be an ACSP from spring/summer 2026. Firms that want to offer IDV services to their clients need to register under the scheme now.
“Companies House wants to support directors and PSCs to verify their identity through all the available channels,” explains Michelle Giddings, Head of AML within Professional Standards at ICAEW. “So, you can register to be an ACSP now if IDV is something you want to offer. But the reality is that most of our firms will need to come on stream within the next year because you'll have to be an ACSP to file on behalf of clients from spring/summer 2026.”
Improving transparency and accuracy
The ECCTA is designed to make the information held by Companies House more accurate and trustworthy, and to improve its ability to help in the fight against economic crime. “The register is searched around 9.5 billion times a year,” says Mark Buckley, Senior Implementation Lead at Companies House. “So, our data is both incredibly useful and well-used.”
As a package, the new measures should improve transparency, help the register become more accurate, and give those searching for company information greater confidence that directors and PSCs of companies are identity-verified and are who they say they are.
The first set of measures, which came into effect on 4 March 2024, included greater powers for Companies House to query information, more robust checks on company names, new rules for registered office addresses, the introduction of lawful purpose statements, and new data sharing powers.
These measures are already producing results. “Between the changes coming into effect and March 2025, we've prevented over 14,000 suspicious filings, including rejecting over 3,500 incorporation documents,” says Mark. “Yet, prior to ECCTA, in the 170 or so years since the register was formed, we’d only rejected or removed two incorporations, and these were in extremis. We’ve also now been able to remove over 10,500 non-incorporation filings, which were attempted registrations against existing companies with suspicious fraud markers attached to them.”
Verifying identities
As an ACSP, providing IDV services for your clients is purely voluntary. “If you don't wish to provide this service for your clients, then you don’t need to,” says Mark. Most clients can and will IDV themselves directly at Companies House. And if you don’t already have digital ‘know your client’ processes or properly trained staff, setting up IDV that meets the new Companies House requirements could be costly. “This is therefore a service only a small number of accountancy firms is likely to get involved in,” he stresses.
Voluntary IDV for directors and PSCs launched on 8 April 2025. From autumn/winter 2025, IDV for directors and PSCs will become mandatory for any company whose confirmation statement is due. This is because the directors and PSCs will need to provide Companies House with their personal codes, which they will have following IDV. This transition period will end in autumn/winter 2026, After that all directors and PSCs on the register will have been ID-verified.
There are two routes for directors and PSCs to meet IDV requirements: directly through Companies House using One Login or via an ACSP. Once successfully verified, individuals will receive a personal code. As of 10 June, Companies House had processed around 70-80,000 IDVs through One Login and over 2,000 via an ACSP.
If a company has multiple directors and one of those directors hasn't identity-verified when the confirmation statement is due, the statement can't be delivered, so all directors need to have a personal code at the point, otherwise the statement will go overdue.
“Your clients are able to verify now,” stresses Mark. “So, if you have clients with confirmation statements due towards the end of this year, get them to get their identity verified and receive their personal codes ahead of time. Don't leave it to the last minute.”
You will also need to verify identities for directors and PSCs for your own practice if you’re a limited company or limited liability partnership. And, if you want to register as an ACSP, you’ll need to verify your identity before you can use the online registration service.
How to successfully register as an ACSP
If you decide to register as an ACSP, either to provide IDV services to clients now, or to ensure you can file on their behalf in future, the process is straightforward. To register, you must be supervised by a UK anti-money laundering (AML) supervisory body, such as ICAEW, so before you start, ensure you're eligible to apply. “Just being an ICAEW member or being regulated by us doesn't automatically mean you're AML-supervised,” explains Michelle. “You must be AML-supervised by ICAEW because you meet the definition of an ICAEW member firm, or you are supervised under contract.”
Once you’ve checked you’re eligible, the application simply requires you to supply specific, and accurate, details about your firm to Companies House. This includes its name, address and email, as well as your company number if you’re a limited company, the name of your AML supervisory body and your AML membership number or ID (see below for how to identify the correct reference number). If you are a sole practitioner, you need to use the ‘firm name’ that ICAEW records, which you can find on your annual return. “Once all the data is in our system, we’ll cross reference that with the limited company data we hold and the records from the AML supervisor,” says Mark.
You’ll also be asked to complete IDV for your own firm as part of the application and to pay a £55 registration fee. Once registered, you’ll receive a new digital account and unique identity number, which will allow you to file information, as well as complete IDV for your clients if you wish to. The person registering the firm as an ACSP can add other employees to the ACSP account once it’s registered and approved.
Between the launch of ACSP registration on 18 March and 10 June, Companies House had received over 5,500 applications and successfully registered around 4,000 ACSPs. “We’ve rejected quite a high percentage simply because we couldn't validate and verify the data provided against the information we hold from AML supervisors,” says Mark. The table below explains the information you need to supply so that Companies House can match their records with ICAEW’s, and some examples of the incorrect information that is causing applications to be rejected.
| What information do you need to have ready | Do not submit |
| Your ICAEW firm number starting C0 (zero) or, for a very small number of firms, starting A0. You can find this on your firm’s annual return |
L0 numbers (that's the reference number ICAEW gives to office addresses and locations) |
| Personal ICAEW member numbers (ICAEW doesn't provide those to Companies House) | |
| The firm name that ICAEW has on its records. You can find this on your firm’s annual return |
Trading names (We don't share trading names with Companies House) |
“When everything does match up, the process should take about 90 seconds end to end,” says Mark. “You’ll then receive a confirmation that your ACSP has been registered, an ACSP number (starting with AP) and a new ACSP account, to which you can subsequently add employees.”
Next steps
The timeline for the upcoming changes becoming mandatory does not yet include precise dates. This is because although ECCTA, as the primary legislation, establishes the ability to create the measures, some of the secondary legislation necessary for implementation is still being finalised.
Companies House is providing ongoing updates, however, and will announce the specific dates with plenty of notice. “Any changes, in terms of implementation dates, will be on our campaign site,” says Mark. “We also have plenty of guidance and support material on gov.uk. And you can subscribe to newsletters or check our social media posts.”
At ICAEW, we will continue to highlight relevant updates from Companies House, and we are supporting our firms with further guidance material. Our recent webinar is available on demand. We are also preparing a series of AMLbites videos covering key issues, including ACSP registration, IDV requirements and challenges, and implementation concerns.
Finally, look out for the follow-up to this article, which will discuss IDV in more detail for ACSPs wishing to offer this service to their clients.
Resources
- Watch ICAEW’s webinar, Companies House update: ACSPs and the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act.
- Visit the Companies House campaign webpage, which contains links to further guidance, blogs and updates.
