Companies House is the executive agency of the British Government that maintains the register of companies, employs the company registrars and is responsible for incorporating all forms of companies in the United Kingdom.[3][4]
Prior to 1844, no central company register existed and companies could only be incorporated through letters patent and legislation. At the time, few incorporated companies existed; between 1801 and 1844, only about 100 companies were incorporated. The Joint Stock Companies Act 1844 created a centralised register of companies, enabled incorporation by registration, and established the office of the registrar; the Joint Stock Companies Act 1856 mandated separate registrars for each of the three UK jurisdictions. Initially just a brand, Companies House became an executive agency in 1988.
All public limited, private limited, private unlimited, chartered and some other companies are incorporated and registered with Companies House. The agency also registers limited partnerships, while most other enterprises fall under the purview of the Financial Conduct Authority. All limited companies (including subsidiary, small and inactive) must file annual financial statements with Companies House, all of which are public records. The agency is also responsible for dissolving companies.
From 2016, Companies House operated under the authority of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. This then became the Department for Business and Trade from 7 February 2023 following a Machinery of Government change initiated by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The current chief executive is Louise Smyth, who is also registrar for England and Wales. The agency, as well as British company law in general, is governed by the Companies Act 2006. As of May 2025, Companies House maintains records of over 5.44 million active companies,[5] including over 5.11 million private limited companies[6] and over 4,000 public limited companies.[7]
History
19th century
Prior to 1844, companies could only be incorporated through grant of a royal charter, by private act of Parliament,[8] or, from 1834, by letters patent. Few companies were incorporated, with only approximately 100 companies being incorporated by private act between 1801 and 1844.[9] At this time, no central register of companies was in existence.
Joint Stock Companies Act 1844
The origins of Companies House date back to 1844, the year the Joint Stock Companies Act received royal assent, enabling companies to be incorporated by registration for the first time.[10]
Registrars of Companies
The role of Registrar of Companies is not a political one, and the incumbent is a civil servant.
England and Wales
The Registrar of Companies for England and Wales is located in Cardiff,[41] and is responsible for the registration of companies in England and Wales. Until 2011 there was another office in Nantgarw, Wales. The London office at Petty France is purely a facility to file and view documents, which are then processed in Cardiff.
Scotland
The Registrar of Companies for Scotland, is based at Companies House, Edinburgh, and is responsible for the registration of companies in Scotland. The current registrar is Lisa Davis.[4]
Northern Ireland
Undertakings registered
Companies
Companies House acts as registrar for the following types of company:
- Public companies limited by shares[42][43]
- Public companies limited by guarantee[42][43]
- Societates Europaeae,[44]
Register of Companies
The Register of Companies is the index of every undertaking registered with Companies House.[63]
Names
Uniqueness
Every undertaking registered with Companies House must have a unique name.[64] Whether a name is unique or not is determined by Companies House; certain terms and punctuation, and characters after the first 60, are completely disregarded when assessing the uniqueness of a name, and other characters, although strictly different, are deemed to be the same as each other.[65]
Restrictions
Companies may not have names which if used would constitute a criminal offence, or which are offensive.
Controversy
In February 2008, The Times[103] and Computer Weekly[104] broke a story that almost 4,000 of the names on the Companies House register of directors were on international watchlists of alleged fraudsters, money launderers, terror financiers and corrupt officials. The results came from Datanomic who had screened the 6.8 million names on the register against a World-Check database of high risk individuals and businesses. The exercise also revealed more than 1,500 disqualified company directors were being allowed to run other UK companies as Companies House was not checking names against its register of disqualified persons.[103]
In 2026 a problem with the Companies House website led to logged in users possibly being able to view and edit other companies' information, such as residential addresses and dates of birth. The security vulnerability was present for six months. No passwords were compromised in the data breach.[105][106]
See also
External links
References
- Joint Stock Companies Act 1844 c. 110 Preamble Westlaw, Thomson Reuters, retrieved 2021-02-01^
- Louise Smyth GOV.UK, retrieved 2022-12-04^
- A Dictionary of Law Oxford University Press, 2018^