ECCTA identity verification: what accountants need to know

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 is the biggest change to Companies House since the register went online. Its centrepiece for practitioners is identity verification: company directors and people with significant control must verify who they are with Companies House. For accountants, this stopped being background reading and became a client-management task the moment the requirement went live.

What the requirement actually is

Verification is a one-off check that ties a person on the register to a real identity. There are two routes: directly with Companies House using GOV.UK One Login, or through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP) — a supervised agent, such as an accountancy firm registered with Companies House, that carries out the check and confirms it. Once verified, a person receives a personal code they reuse across appointments.

The timeline in practice

Companies House opened voluntary verification in spring 2025, and from 18 November 2025 verification became a legal requirement for new directors on incorporation and appointment. Existing directors and PSCs are being brought in through a 12-month transition, with each company’s deadline linked to its next confirmation statement. That phasing is why a client book can simultaneously contain fully verified companies and companies where nobody has started.

Why it matters for your book

• An unverified officer becomes a filing blocker — verification status is now part of whether a company can transact with the register normally.
• The transition deadline is per-company, not a single national date, so it has to be tracked company by company.
• Firms registered as ACSPs can verify clients themselves, turning a compliance chore into a service line.
• Non-compliance is an offence for the individual and puts the company’s filings — and ultimately its good standing — at risk.

What to do now

Audit the book: which clients have unverified directors or PSCs, and when does each company’s transition window close? FilingIQ tracks verification status per company alongside filing deadlines precisely so this is a filter, not a project. Then decide your firm’s route — point clients at GOV.UK One Login with instructions, or register as an ACSP and do it for them. Either way, the firms that handle this early will spend the transition year signing up the clients of the firms that did not.