Companies House identity verification applies to every director of a UK company, regardless of where they live. The guidance published for it, however, was written with a UK resident in mind: a biometric passport, a UK smartphone, and a UK financial history. For the international founders and non-resident directors that 1Office UK works with, that guidance often does not describe their situation at all, and the gap between the two shows up at the worst possible moment: when a confirmation statement is due and cannot be filed.
The verification requirement is the same for everyone. The experience of completing it is not.
Since 18 November 2025, under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, every director and person with significant control (PSC) of a UK company must verify their identity with Companies House. This applies without exception to directors who live outside the UK. There is no residency carve-out, no reduced requirement, and no separate deadline for overseas officers. The rule is written as though location does not matter, and legally, it does not. In practice, it matters a great deal.
There are two routes to the same outcome: an eleven-character personal code that must be quoted on certain filings. The first is GOV.UK One Login, the free government service. The second is verification through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider, or ACSP, a firm registered with Companies House and supervised for anti-money-laundering purposes that verifies an individual and confirms it directly to the register.
GOV.UK One Login works cleanly for a director holding a biometric passport, since the direct online route accepts a biometric passport issued by any country, not only the UK. The friction appears for directors without one. Where a biometric passport is not available, the service falls back to identity questions built on UK credit-reference data, which assumes a UK financial footprint the person may never have had. Directors based abroad who have described the process report the same outcome: a valid non-UK passport is scanned, a selfie is taken, and the service is simply unable to confirm the identity, with no specific reason given.
The single most useful question an overseas director can ask themselves before starting verification is not "which route is official" but "do I hold a biometric passport." If the answer is yes, GOV.UK One Login is usually the faster, free option, and works from any country with a compatible smartphone. If the answer is no, or the passport is a non-biometric type still issued by some countries, the free route is likely to stall on the fallback security questions, and an ACSP is the more reliable path.
An ACSP verifies against the document itself, not against a UK financial history, and generally accepts a wider range of national identity documents, including non-biometric passports and national ID cards. This is not a lesser or informal version of verification. It produces the same personal code, accepted by Companies House on exactly the same basis.
Where the verification programme actually stands, seven months in
Companies House estimates that between six and seven million directors and PSCs fall within scope of the requirement. Its progress report published in June 2026 recorded that nearly four million had verified and linked their identity to their appointments, leaving a substantial share still to complete the process as the transition window narrows.
For most existing directors, the practical deadline arrives well before the November 2026 backstop, because it is tied to the company's next confirmation statement. A director who has not verified by the time that filing is due will find the confirmation statement itself cannot be submitted, regardless of how far off the November deadline still is.
The practical checklist for a non-resident director
Establish which document you actually hold
A current biometric passport, from any country, is the fastest path through GOV.UK One Login. A non-biometric passport, an expired document awaiting renewal, or reliance on a national ID card rather than a passport all point toward the ACSP route instead. Establishing this before attempting verification saves a failed attempt and the delay of starting again.
Check that the ACSP you use is actually offering verification, not just registered
Being listed on the public ACSP register confirms a firm is authorised; it does not confirm the firm actively offers identity verification as a service. Many firms registered in anticipation of the wider agent-filing requirement arriving in 2026 without building out a verification service. Confirming this in advance, rather than assuming registration implies the service, avoids a wasted approach.
Map your deadline against your confirmation statement, not the November backstop
A director sitting on the board of more than one UK company only needs to verify once; the resulting personal code applies across every role. But the deadline that matters is the earliest confirmation statement date across all of those companies, not the November 2026 transition deadline. A director whose UK holding company files in September and whose UK trading company files in March is, in practice, working to the March date.
If the company is an overseas entity with a UK establishment, the trigger date is different again
Directors of overseas companies with a UK establishment verify by the anniversary of the UK establishment's registration, using a separate filing (form OS VS01), rather than by a confirmation statement date. This distinction is easy to miss for group structures that combine a UK-incorporated subsidiary with a UK branch of an overseas parent.
| Situation | Best route | What to check first |
|---|---|---|
| Overseas director, biometric passport | GOV.UK One Login | Smartphone supports NFC chip scanning; passport not expired |
| Overseas director, non-biometric passport or national ID only | Authorised Corporate Service Provider | ACSP genuinely offers ID verification, not just AML/company formation |
| Director on multiple UK company boards | Either route, verified once | Earliest confirmation statement date across all directorships |
| Director of an overseas company with a UK establishment | Either route, filed via form OS VS01 | Anniversary of the UK establishment's registration date, not a confirmation statement |
| PSC who is not a director | Either route | First 14 days of birth month, not the confirmation statement date |
An unverified director is not a paperwork gap that resolves itself. Companies House has confirmed that missed verification blocks the confirmation statement entirely, that persistent non-compliance is a criminal offence, and that its enforcement approach extends to financial penalties, register annotations, director disqualification, and striking a company off the register in the most serious cases.
1Office UK supports directors and PSCs, including those based outside the UK, in getting identity verification completed correctly and ahead of the deadline that actually applies to their company, as part of ongoing company formation and compliance support.
1Office UK helps directors, including overseas and non-resident directors, map their Companies House verification requirements correctly.
Sources and references: Companies House, Verify your identity for Companies House, GOV.UK, last updated April 2026; Companies House, Understanding identity verification for people with significant control, January 2026; Companies House third progress report on identity verification, June 2026; Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 as published; industry guidance on overseas director verification routes, 2026.
Have overseas or non-resident directors on your UK company?
1Office UK supports identity verification, company formation, and ongoing compliance for UK companies with international directors.
Questions overseas directors ask most about identity verification
What happens if I don't have a biometric passport for Companies House identity verification?
GOV.UK One Login relies on scanning a biometric passport's NFC chip, and without one it typically falls back to identity questions built on UK credit-reference data, which non-resident directors often cannot satisfy. In that case, verification through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP) is usually the more reliable route, since an ACSP verifies against the document itself and generally accepts a wider range of documents, including non-biometric passports and national ID cards. The personal code produced is identical either way.
How do directors of an overseas company with a UK establishment verify their identity?
Directors of an overseas company with a UK establishment verify by the anniversary of the UK establishment's registration date, using form OS VS01, rather than by a UK confirmation statement date. This is a separate trigger date from the one used for UK-incorporated companies, and it's easy to miss for group structures that combine a UK subsidiary with a UK branch of an overseas parent.
Do I need to verify my identity separately for each UK company I'm a director of?
No. Identity verification is a one-off process per individual, not per company. Once verified, you receive a personal code that applies to every directorship and PSC role you hold. However, the deadline that matters is the earliest confirmation statement date across all of your directorships, not a single shared date.
Is an ACSP the same as GOV.UK One Login for identity verification?
Both routes produce the same outcome: a personal code accepted by Companies House on the same basis. GOV.UK One Login is the free, direct government route and works well for a director holding a biometric passport. An Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP) is a firm registered with and supervised by Companies House that verifies identity on your behalf, and is often the more reliable route for directors without a biometric passport or with limited access to UK-specific verification checks.
