A confirmation statement costs £50 online or £110 on paper, is due at least once every 12 months, and must be filed within 14 days of the review period ending. If you have seen £34 quoted anywhere, that figure was superseded on 1 February 2026.
It is not an annual return, it is not a set of accounts, and it does not carry an automatic late filing penalty. What it does carry is a financial penalty, strike-off risk and a criminal offence — and since November 2025 it is also the mechanism through which existing directors connect their verified identity to the company.
What a confirmation statement is
A confirmation statement (form CS01) confirms that the information Companies House holds about your company is up to date. It is a checkpoint, not a data dump — most of the time you are confirming that nothing has changed.
Every company must file one at least once every year, including dormant and non-trading companies, even if nothing changed during the review period. Since March 2024 you must also confirm that the intended future activities of the company will be lawful; without that statement the filing cannot be submitted.
How much it costs
| Filing route | Fee |
|---|---|
| Online | £50 |
| Paper form CS01 by post | £110 |
Both figures took effect on 1 February 2026.
The fee is payable once per 12-month payment period, not per filing. This trips people up, so it is worth being clear about the mechanics.
Your payment period is separate from your review period. It covers 12 months starting with the date of incorporation. For older companies it ends on the anniversary of the return date of the last annual return (form AR01). You cannot change it.
You pay the fee with the first confirmation statement you file in a payment period, then file as many more as you like within that period at no extra cost. A new fee falls due at the anniversary.
Companies House’s own example: a payment period runs 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2022. A statement filed on 30 September 2022 attracts the fee. A second, filed on 1 December 2022, does not. One filed on 5 January 2023 does, because it falls in a new payment period.
When it is due
You must review your records and file at least one confirmation statement every 12 months.
The review period ends 12 months after either:
- the date your company was incorporated, if this is your first confirmation statement, or
- the confirmation statement date on your last confirmation statement
You then have 14 days from the end of the review period to file.
You can check your confirmation date and filing deadline on the company’s record on the Companies House register, and sign up for free email reminders.
If you file early, you choose a new confirmation statement date, and your next review period starts the day after it. That is genuinely useful: to record a share issue or a SIC code change mid-year, an early statement resets the clock and — inside the same payment period — costs nothing.
What you confirm
Before filing, check the company’s record and correct anything wrong. Some changes must be notified separately before you submit the statement; others can be reported on the statement itself. Getting this the wrong way round is the most common reason a filing stalls.
Tell Companies House about these separately, first:
- directors and the company secretary
- people with significant control (PSCs)
- the registered office address
- the registered email address
These you can report on the confirmation statement itself:
- your Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code — the number identifying what the company does
- the statement of capital
- the trading status of shares
- exemption from providing PSC information
- shareholder information
The registered email address. If you have not already provided one, you must supply it on your confirmation statement. Companies House uses it to contact you about the company. It is not published on the public register, and you are expected to read what arrives.
Shareholder reporting is due to expand: Companies House has said you will in future have to give the full names of all shareholders and provide a full list once. That measure is not yet in force — treat it as coming, not current.
The identity verification step
This is the biggest practical change to the confirmation statement in a decade, and it runs through the CS01.
Identity verification became a legal requirement on 18 November 2025. That date is not a deadline: it started a 12-month transition period, and Companies House has not published a cut-off date for it. For an existing director the deadline that actually bites is the company’s next confirmation statement. The requirement applies to new and existing directors, PSCs and LLP members.
Existing directors provide their Companies House personal code as part of the company’s next confirmation statement — separately for each company they direct. On the statement you give the personal code for each director and tick a statement confirming each has verified their identity.
Companies House will not accept the confirmation statement until every director has verified. That turns a ten-minute filing into a blocked one if a fellow director has not got around to it, so chase codes well before the 14-day window opens.
PSCs must verify and provide their personal code too. A PSC who is also a director has 14 days starting the day after the confirmation statement date; a PSC who is not a director uses the first 14 days of their birth month, through the separate ‘Provide identity verification details for a PSC’ service. Non-compliance is an offence, and it can block you from making filings or starting a new company.
What happens if it is late
Start with what does not happen. Companies House late filing penalties apply only to accounts. There is no automatic £150-to-£1,500 scale for a late confirmation statement, whatever plenty of published guidance implies. What you get instead is worse in some ways, because it is open-ended.
A financial penalty. Under the regime that took effect on 2 May 2024, the registrar can impose one. The process starts with a warning notice giving at least 28 days to make written representations. If you take the required action within 28 days beginning the day after the warning notice date, you will not receive a penalty — file the statement and it goes away. If you do not, the amount turns on the seriousness of the offence and how many times the same offence has been committed in the last 5 years:
| Seriousness | First offence | Second | Third | Fourth or more |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minor | £250 | £500 | £750 | £1,000 |
| Serious | £500 | £750 | £1,000 | £1,500 |
| Very serious | £750 | £1,000 | £1,500 | £2,000 |
Penalties can also run at a daily rate. Companies House states plainly that if you receive a penalty for failing to file a confirmation statement, you may receive a new penalty for each day it remains unfiled.
Strike-off action. The registrar can take steps to strike the company off the register. A struck-off company’s assets pass to the Crown, and administrative restoration costs £341.
A criminal offence. Under section 853L of the Companies Act 2006, failing to deliver a confirmation statement within 14 days of the end of a review period is an offence committed by the company and every officer in default, with a shadow director treated as a director. It is triable summarily, with a daily default fine for continued contravention. Companies House puts the exposure at up to £5,000, and notes that criminal proceedings are separate from and additional to any penalty issued against the company.
If you are restoring a company to the register, note that you must file a paper form CS01, using the confirmation date that was due before the company was struck off.
Frequently asked questions
How much is a confirmation statement in 2026?
£50 to file online and £110 to file a paper form CS01 by post. Both figures apply from 1 February 2026. The fee is payable once per 12-month payment period, not per filing.
How long do I have to file a confirmation statement?
14 days from the end of the review period. The review period ends 12 months after your incorporation date for a first statement, or 12 months after the confirmation statement date on your last one.
Is there a late filing penalty for a confirmation statement?
Not the automatic penalty that applies to accounts — that one applies only to accounts. Instead the registrar can issue a financial penalty after a warning notice, take strike-off action, and prosecute. Failing to file is a criminal offence for the company and every officer in default.
Do dormant companies have to file a confirmation statement?
Yes. Every company, including dormant and non-trading companies, must file at least one every 12 months, and the fee is the same.
Can I file more than one confirmation statement in a year?
Yes, and there is no extra fee within the same 12-month payment period. Filing early is a legitimate way to record a change to your SIC code, statement of capital or shareholder information — it resets your confirmation statement date and starts a new review period.
Getting it filed
The statement itself is short. The work is in checking the register first, sequencing the changes that have to be notified separately, and collecting a personal code from every director before Companies House will accept anything at all.
SmartFiling handles Companies House compliance on a fixed fee, including confirmation statements, accounts and the identity verification details that now travel with them. Every filing is reviewed and signed off by an ICAEW Chartered Accountant, and it is all done online.
