UK Companies House Search (2026 Update)
Updated: 18 May 2026
Companies House is one of the most accessible corporate registers in the world, freely searchable, largely machine-readable, and packed with the kind of filing history that builds or destroys a risk narrative. It also remains substantially self-reported, is still catching up on identity verification, and has well-documented structural gaps that financial criminals continue to exploit. Knowing how to use it well means knowing where it falls short.
This guide covers what data is available, how to search it effectively, the limitations that matter for due diligence, and the 2024-2026 reforms that are reshaping what the register contains.
What is Companies House?
Companies House is the UK's official registrar of companies, operating under the Department for Business and Trade. It comprises three distinct registrars: Companies House Cardiff for England and Wales, Companies House Edinburgh for Scotland, and Companies House Belfast for Northern Ireland. Together, they maintain records on over five million active entities and incorporate more than 500,000 new companies each year.
The register is free to search, and most data is publicly available without login. Where you need continuous, structured access to official UK company data at volume, or where cross-border verification requires matching UK records against other jurisdictions, Kyckr's API and portal delivers live data directly from Companies House alongside 300+ other official registries from a single integration point.
What data is available?
Basic information
Company name, company registration number (CRN), registered office address, legal form, incorporation date, and status (active, dissolved, in administration, and so on).
Officers
Names, appointment dates, and service addresses for current and former directors and secretaries. From 18 November 2025, each officer record now includes an identity verification status field reflecting whether the individual has completed mandatory IDV under ECCTA.
People with Significant Control (PSC)
Names, addresses, and the nature of control (shareholding percentage, voting rights, or other significant influence) for all registrable PSCs. The PSC register is fully public and free to access. Unlike some EU jurisdictions following the CJEU judgment on beneficial ownership access, the UK has not restricted this data to AML-obliged entities.
Shareholders
Shareholder information is not returned by the REST API but is contained within confirmation statements, which are available to download as documents. This creates a meaningful friction point for bulk or programmatic analysis.
Financial accounts
Annual accounts are free to download. Roughly 60% of accounts are filed in structured XBRL format and are available in machine-readable form via the Accounts Data Product. The remainder are submitted as PDFs or scanned images, which cannot be parsed programmatically. Small and micro-entity accounts contain only limited financial detail.
Filing history
All historical filings are available, including confirmation statements, director changes, charges, insolvency proceedings, and applications to strike off.
How to search Companies House
Step 1: Go to the search portal
Navigate to the official Companies House search service (https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk). No account is required for basic searching. The portal works by company name, company registration number (CRN), or officer name.
Step 2: Search for a company
For common names, add a town or keyword to narrow results. CRN searches are unambiguous and the most reliable route when you already have the number. Officer name searches return all current and former director appointments across any entity, which is useful for mapping an individual's corporate history.
Step 3: Review the company record
The summary screen shows status, registered office, incorporation date, and entity type. Dissolved status appears here clearly.
Step 4: Review officers and PSCs
Directors, secretaries, and PSCs are listed under separate tabs. Pay attention to the appointment date, the service address, and whether the address matches any known mass-registration address. Check for the blue tick: this shows whether they’ve had their identity verified.
Step 5: Download filings
The filing history tab lists every document submitted to Companies House. Click any entry to download the document as a PDF or, for more recently filed accounts, as structured data. Confirmation statements contain shareholder information and should be downloaded when you need ownership details beyond what the PSC register provides.
Step 6: Set up monitoring
The Follow service (free) sends email alerts when a company files anything. It works for any followed company and includes a direct link to the new filing. For bulk or automated monitoring, the Streaming API is the appropriate route.
Beneficial ownership and PSC
The PSC register is public, free, and carries no access restrictions. It is also not a UBO register, and conflating the two is a breach of MLR 2017.
A PSC is any person holding more than 25% of shares or voting rights or exercising significant influence over a company. UK law requires only the direct owner to be reported. Your AML obligations require you to find the UBO. Those are not always the same person.
Five structural weaknesses make this matter in practice:
The next-level loophole means a company need only list its direct parent, even if that parent is itself owned by a chain of further entities.
Ownership bands – "75% or more" rather than an exact figure – make it impossible to detect aggregation of interests, where multiple parties each hold just below 25% while maintaining collective control.
Trusts show only trustees; settlors and beneficiaries are invisible.
Nominees appear as legitimate PSCs.
And Open Ownership's 2025 report found that nearly half of all PSC data is potentially unreliable, with 20% of entries naming no individual beneficial owner at all.
The Lemixton Solutions case made this concrete. The register showed a single owner. Behind her, millions of dollars in Uzbek state contracts were being processed through a nominee arrangement, with ownership concealed via a backdated trust filing. The register reflected what was filed. It did not reflect what was true.
Available Documents
Certificate of Incorporation: Confirms legal existence and the company's registration number. Free to download.
Confirmation Statement (CS01): Filed at least annually. Contains the company's current structure, director list, PSC register entries, and, critically, shareholder information with percentages. This is the document to pull when you need current ownership details in a structured narrative form.
Annual Accounts: Balance sheet, profit and loss statement, and (for larger companies) audit reports. Small companies file abbreviated accounts; micro-entities file minimal information. Free to download.
Director Appointment and Resignation Forms (AP01/TM01): Record officer changes with appointment and resignation dates. Free to download.
Charges (MR01): Registers secured lending against company assets. Useful for identifying financial exposure or asset stripping. Free to download.
Application to Strike Off (DS01): Filed when a company seeks voluntary dissolution. A recent DS01 on a company with outstanding liabilities or active creditor relationships is worth investigating.
Liquidation Documents: Statement of Affairs, Liquidator's Statement of Proceedings. Free to download.
APIs and Open Data
Companies House provides a public REST API that is free to use and requires registration for an API key. It covers company profiles, officer data, PSC data, filing history, charges, and insolvency records. It does not return shareholder data, credit information, or data on companies registered outside the UK.
Four streaming endpoints push changes in near real time: company profiles, filing history, officers, charges and PSCs. Each account is limited to two concurrent streaming connections. The streaming API does not flag director disqualifications; those require a separate polling call.
Open data products include a monthly CSV snapshot of active companies (including SIC codes, status, and historical names), daily and monthly dumps of XBRL-filed accounts (covering approximately 60% of all accounts), and a PSC data product in JSON format.
The XML Gateway is a paid subscription service supporting machine-to-machine queries.
For teams running multi-jurisdiction KYB at scale, the Companies House API covers the UK, but stops there. The Kyckr API provides live UK registry data alongside official records from 300+ jurisdictions through a single integration, removing the need to build and maintain separate connections for each market.
Is Companies House reliable?
Kyckr ranks Companies House third in the world for registry data quality, scoring well on verified data, unique identifiers, active enforcement, and usability. The one gap is nominee transparency: the UK does not require nominee shareholders to be publicly disclosed, which means the person on the register may not be the real owner.
Treat the register as a starting point, not a verdict.
2024-2026 reforms: The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023
The ECCTA has fundamentally changed the role of Companies House.
Director and PSC Verification: From 18 November 2025, all new directors and PSCs must verify their identity before appointment, with a transition window for existing officers ending 17 November 2026. An unverified director blocks confirmation statement filing entirely, so check IDV status on every onboarding review.
Sole Register: Companies House also now acts as the sole register for directors, secretaries, and PSCs, removing the inconsistency between internal and public records.
Active Gatekeeper: Between April 2024 and March 2025, it queried or removed inaccurate information relating to 106,300 companies.
Filing Fees Increase: Filing fees rose from 1 February 2026: digital incorporation is now £100, and confirmation statement filing is £50.
Access structured KYB data from 300+ company registers in real time
Companies House is one of the most open company registers in the world: free, public, and now gradually improving in data quality under ECCTA. The gaps are real, though. A PSC register still reliant on self-certification, and no direct API access to shareholder data means that thorough due diligence on complex or high-risk entities cannot rely on Companies House alone.
Kyckr provides live official data directly from Companies House and over 300 other registries through a single API, with no separate integration required per jurisdiction. Book a demo to find out more.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the PSC register and how does it work?
The People with Significant Control register records individuals or entities holding more than 25% of shares or voting rights or exercising significant influence over a company. It has been public since 2016. Where no individual meets the threshold, a company may declare an RLE or submit a "no registrable PSC" statement. Neither should be accepted at face value; both warrant investigation if the entity is high-risk. Pull the confirmation statement for the full shareholder picture.
What documents can I get from Companies House?
Incorporation certificates, confirmation statements (including shareholder data), annual accounts, director change forms, charge registrations, insolvency documents, and strike-off applications are all free.
Does Companies House have an API?
Yes. The REST API is free and covers company profiles, officers, PSCs, filing history, and charges. The Streaming API delivers near-real-time changes across four data streams. Neither returns shareholder data directly; extract that from downloaded confirmation statements.