How Companies House Works: The UK Register Explained

Companies House is the UK's official registrar of companies — the government body that incorporates new companies, maintains the public register of every UK company, and makes that information freely available. If you have ever looked up a company's directors, accounts or filing history, you were using Companies House data. This guide explains what it is, what's on the register, what companies are legally required to file, and how to turn that raw public record into something useful.

What Companies House is

Companies House is an executive agency of the UK government. Its core jobs are to incorporate and dissolve companies, examine and store the information companies must send it, and make that information available to the public. Almost everything on the register is public by law — which is why company data is such a rich, free resource for research, due diligence and sales.

There are separate registers for England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, all searchable through the same official register.

What's on the register

For each of the UK's ~5 million-plus companies, the register holds:

• Core details — company name, number, type, incorporation date, registered office address, and SIC codes describing what the company does.
• People — current and past directors and secretaries, and persons with significant control (who ultimately owns or controls the company).
• Filing history — accounts, confirmation statements, officer changes and more, each dated. See how to read a filing history.
• Charges — mortgages and secured borrowing registered against the company.
• Status — whether the company is active, dormant, dissolved or in an insolvency process. See company status meanings.

What companies must file

Every company has ongoing obligations. The main recurring filings are:

• Annual accounts — a financial report each year, in a format that depends on the company's size. See company accounts explained.
• A confirmation statement — at least once a year, confirming the register is up to date. See what a confirmation statement is.
• Event-driven filings — appointing or removing a director, changing the registered office, issuing shares, or registering a charge.

Deadlines and fees are set by Companies House and change over time — always check the current requirements on GOV.UK.

The limits of the free register

The register is authoritative and free, but it is built for looking up one company at a time. It has no bulk filtering, no market roll-ups, and no alerts when something changes. If you need to search across the whole register — for example every new company in a sector and region — you need a layer on top of it. That's the gap tools like a Companies House alternative fill.

Turning the register into intelligence

The same public data supports very different jobs:

• Research — understand a single company's people, ownership and filings. Start with how to research a UK company.
• Prospecting — find newly registered companies to sell to, filtered by sector and location, from the UK company database.
• Monitoring — track companies and get told when they file or change directors. See company monitoring.

Companies House provides the raw, trustworthy record; what you do with it depends on your job. To see the live register in a form built for searching and filtering, try a search or get a free weekly email of new companies in your sector.