Starting a business in United Kingdom: foreigner's guide (2026)

The digital incorporation fee doubled from £50 to £100 and the annual confirmation statement fee rose to £50, funding the continuing rollout of ECCTA 2023 reforms. This marked the second major fee rise in under two years, bringing the cost of registering a company to more than eight times its 2023 level.

Under ECCTA 2023, all new directors and persons with significant control must verify their identity with Companies House using a passport or driving licence before incorporation or appointment; existing officers have a 12-month transition period. The UK became the first major jurisdiction to require real-time identity checks at the point of company formation.

The standard digital incorporation fee rose from £12 to £50 and the confirmation statement fee from £13 to £34 — the first significant fee revision in over a decade — to fund Companies House's expanded gatekeeper powers under ECCTA 2023. Same-day incorporation also jumped from £30 to £78.

Companies House gained new statutory powers to query, challenge, and reject suspicious or fraudulent filings; all companies became required to supply a registered email address and declare a lawful purpose on incorporation; and proactive data-sharing powers with law enforcement were activated. This was the first operational phase of the most ambitious UK corporate-registration overhaul since 1844.

ECCTA 2023 transformed Companies House from a passive registrar into an active gatekeeper by mandating identity verification, granting powers to scrutinise and suppress inaccurate filings, introducing a lawful-purpose statement at incorporation, and creating a new 'failure to prevent fraud' corporate offence. It provided the legislative framework for all subsequent 2024–2026 implementation steps.

Overseas entities owning or seeking to buy UK land must now register with Companies House and disclose their beneficial owners; those already holding UK property had until 31 January 2023 to comply. The register was created to end the use of opaque foreign corporate structures to hold UK real estate anonymously.

Fast-tracked through Parliament in just 14 days in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Act created the Register of Overseas Entities, strengthened unexplained-wealth orders, and imposed strict civil liability for financial-sanctions breaches. Its speed of passage was unprecedented in modern UK corporate law.

The UK became the first G20 country to maintain a publicly searchable central register of beneficial owners, requiring all companies to record individuals holding more than 25% of shares, voting rights, or other control; the register was made freely searchable via Companies House from 30 June 2016. The requirement also replaced the annual return with the simpler annual confirmation statement.

The Act abolished bearer shares, prohibited corporate directors (subject to exemptions), mandated the forthcoming PSC register, and replaced the annual return with the confirmation statement — all aimed at making the UK the most attractive place to start and grow a business while closing corporate-opacity loopholes. It was described as the most significant company-law reform since the Companies Act 2006.

The final tranche of provisions of the Companies Act 2006 took effect, completing a phased three-year implementation; the Act had, for the first time, enabled fully online company incorporation and established a single consolidated companies statute with simplified rules for small private businesses. This date marks the foundation of today's registration regime.

At 1,300 sections, the Companies Act 2006 was then the longest Act ever passed by Parliament and delivered the most wide-ranging reform of UK company law in over 20 years, replacing the Companies Act 1985; it codified directors' duties in statute, simplified formation requirements for small companies, and laid the digital infrastructure for online registration. It remains the primary legislative framework governing UK company formation today.