Every private limited company must file annual accounts with Companies House once a year. Miss the deadline and an automatic penalty is applied — no warning, no discretion, no grace period. File late two years in a row and those penalties double. Leave accounts outstanding long enough and Companies House can strike your company off the register entirely.
The Companies House penalty regime is entirely separate from HMRC's. Filing accounts late with Companies House does not affect your Corporation Tax deadline with HMRC — these are two distinct obligations with different deadlines, different consequences, and different recipients. This post focuses on the Companies House side.
What needs to be filed and when
Every private limited company must file annual accounts (also called statutory accounts) at Companies House each year. The deadline depends on whether it is your first set of accounts or a subsequent year.
| Situation | Filing deadline |
|---|---|
| First accounts (newly incorporated company) | 21 months after the date of incorporation |
| Subsequent accounts | 9 months after the end of the accounting reference period (financial year end) |
First accounts — the common mistake: newly incorporated companies often assume the 9-month rule applies from the outset. It does not. Your first accounts cover the period from incorporation to your first accounting reference date, and the deadline is 21 months from incorporation — not 9 months from your year end. Getting this wrong is one of the most frequent causes of late filing penalties for new companies.
For example: a company incorporated on 1 March 2025 with an accounting reference date of 31 March has until 1 December 2026 (21 months from incorporation) to file its first accounts. From the second year onwards, accounts for the year ending 31 March 2026 are due by 31 December 2026 — 9 months after year end.
The penalty table
Penalties are applied automatically as soon as the deadline passes. They are determined by how late the accounts arrive at Companies House and are calculated per accounting period, not per year.
| How late | Penalty (private company) | Penalty if late previous year too |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 1 month | £150 | £300 |
| 1 to 3 months | £375 | £750 |
| 3 to 6 months | £750 | £1,500 |
| More than 6 months | £1,500 | £3,000 |
The doubling rule is automatic and applies whenever a company files late in two consecutive accounting periods. You do not need to have received a penalty in the previous year — if the previous year's accounts were also late, even by a day, the current year's penalty doubles. This makes a pattern of consistent late filing disproportionately expensive.
How this differs from the HMRC Corporation Tax deadline
The two filing obligations are frequently confused, particularly by newly incorporated directors. Here is the distinction:
| Companies House — Annual Accounts | HMRC — Corporation Tax | |
|---|---|---|
| What is filed | Statutory accounts (balance sheet, P&L, notes) | CT600 company tax return |
| Filed with | Companies House | HMRC |
| Deadline | 9 months after year end (21 months for first accounts) | 12 months after year end |
| Tax payment deadline | Not applicable | 9 months and 1 day after year end |
| Penalty for late filing | £150 to £1,500 (private company) | £100 immediately, escalating |
| Who enforces | Companies House | HMRC |
Note that the Corporation Tax payment deadline — 9 months and 1 day after year end — falls before both filing deadlines. Tax must be paid before either set of accounts is submitted. Leaving everything until the 12-month CT600 deadline will result in late payment interest on any unpaid Corporation Tax.
Beyond the penalty — other consequences
The financial penalty is the most immediate consequence, but late filing has additional effects that can matter more in practice.
- Public register notation. Late filing is recorded against your company on the Companies House public register. Anyone searching your company — a potential client, supplier, lender, or investor — can see that accounts were delivered late. This is visible indefinitely and cannot be removed.
- Credit rating impact. Late filed accounts can negatively affect a company's credit score. Lenders and credit reference agencies monitor filing behaviour, and a pattern of lateness signals poor governance.
- Strike-off risk. If accounts remain outstanding for long enough, Companies House can initiate strike-off proceedings. A struck-off company ceases to exist as a legal entity — bank accounts are frozen, contracts become unenforceable, and restoring the company requires a court application that is both expensive and time-consuming.
- Director disqualification. Persistent failure to file is grounds for director disqualification proceedings under the Company Directors Disqualification Act. A disqualified director cannot act as a director of any UK company for the duration of the disqualification.
Can you appeal a penalty?
Companies House applies very little discretion to late filing penalties. Appeals are rarely successful. The only circumstances in which Companies House will consider waiving a penalty are where something wholly exceptional and unforeseeable prevented filing — a serious illness or hospitalisation of the only person able to file, a fire destroying all company records, or a Companies House system failure preventing an online submission.
The following are explicitly not accepted as grounds for appeal: reliance on an accountant who failed to file on time, not realising the deadline, financial difficulty, and forgetting. Even where an appeal is made on legitimate grounds, Companies House expects the accounts to be filed without further delay once the exceptional circumstance has passed.
If you wish to appeal, you must do so in writing to Companies House within the time stated on the penalty notice, including the penalty reference number, a clear explanation of the circumstances, and any supporting evidence.
What to do if you are already late
- File immediately. The penalty is already accruing and will only increase the longer accounts remain outstanding. Filing now stops the clock and limits the penalty to the band you are currently in.
- Do not assume the accountant has it covered. As a director, the legal obligation to file rests with you. Delegating to an accountant does not transfer the legal responsibility — if accounts are late because an accountant failed to act, the penalty falls on the company, not the accountant.
- Check your accounting reference date. Log in to Companies House WebFiling and verify both the accounting reference date and the accounts filing deadline for the current period. Errors in the date can lead to unexpected early deadlines.
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Get in TouchThis article is for general information purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Companies House requirements and penalty amounts can change. Always verify current deadlines on the Companies House website or speak to a qualified accountant.