How to file company accounts with Companies House and HMRC

If you run a UK limited company you file twice after your year end: annual accounts to Companies House, nine months after your financial year ends, and a Company Tax Return to HMRC, 12 months after your accounting period ends. The free government service that filed both at once has closed, so both now go through commercial software or your accountant. Here is the order to do it in, what each filing has to contain, and what it costs if you are late.

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Your two deadlines, and the payment date in between

The deadlines are strict and the penalties are applied automatically. One year end produces three dates, and they go to two different organisations, which is where most of the confusion starts:

The date most people miss is the third one, because paying comes before filing. Your corporation tax falls due three months before the return that works it out, and if your company pays in instalments, when corporation tax is due works differently again. The return itself is covered in our guide to the limited company tax return deadline.

Your first accounts are the exception to the nine months. If they cover more than 12 months, they are due 21 months after you registered the company, or three months after your accounting reference date, whichever is later.

Companies House counts to the exact day, and a deadline falling on a Sunday or a bank holiday still stands. What counts is the date it accepts accounts that meet the legal requirements, not the date you sent them. You also file every year even if the company never traded or earned a penny: there is no turnover below which the duty stops.

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The free filing route has closed, and web filing ends in 2028

HMRC's 'File your accounts and Company Tax Return' service closed on 31 March 2026. That was the free government route that sent one set of figures to both registers, and plenty of directors used it for years without learning its name. Since 1 April 2026 you file your accounts and your Company Tax Return with HMRC using commercial software, as Filing company accounts and tax returns if you previously used the HMRC online service on GOV.UK explains.

The Companies House half still has a free route: its own online service takes most small company accounts, and paper accounts can still go to Cardiff by post. Both of those close for accounts on 1 April 2028.

Companies House puts the 2028 change like this. All accounts filings made on or after 1 April 2028 must be filed by commercial software in inline extensible Business Reporting Language (iXBRL) format. From that date its web and paper routes close for accounts filings, while staying open for other statutory filings. It applies whether you file the accounts yourself or your accountant files them for you. The change comes from the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, and Companies House has given 21 months' notice of it. So the sensible move is sorting the software out at a quiet point in your year, rather than in the week before a deadline. Changes to accounts on Changes to UK company law is where the remaining detail will appear.

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Which accounts you file depends on your company's size

Company accounts are more than a record of income and expenses: they are a formal set of documents that gives a complete picture of your company's financial health. How much of that picture you have to hand over depends on how big the company is.

Meet two of the three thresholds for a size and you can file the lighter version. The figures changed for accounting periods beginning on or after 6 April 2025, and the older ones still apply to periods that began before it, so check which set your year end falls under before you prepare anything:

A full set is a balance sheet signed by a director, a profit and loss account, notes to the accounts, and a directors' report, plus an auditor's report unless the company is exempt from audit. Only a micro-entity is excused the directors' report, and it can file a short balance sheet with the micro-entity statement above the signature and leave the profit and loss account out. A small company files the accounts it prepared for its members and can hold back both the profit and loss account and the directors' report, as long as the balance sheet says so. Preparing and filing Companies House accounts on GOV.UK is the guidance behind all of it.

Holding the profit and loss account back is what people mean by 'filleted' accounts, though Companies House does not use the word, and abridged accounts are a different thing again: there your members agree to a shortened balance sheet or profit and loss account. Both end on 1 April 2028, when a profit and loss account becomes part of every small and micro-entity filing, with an option to keep it off the public register.

Statutory accounts follow UK accounting standards – FRS 102, or FRS 105 if you are a micro-entity – and they are not the same thing as the management accounts you might run monthly for yourself. They are the only version Companies House and HMRC will accept.

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If your company was dormant or never traded

Dormant company accounts are a balance sheet carrying the statement that the company was dormant throughout the period, above the director's signature and printed name, with the previous year's figures and certain notes. There is no shorter declaration of inactivity. File them through the Companies House online service, which checks the wording for you, or on paper form AA02 if the company has never traded – see Dormant for Companies House on GOV.UK. The deadline and the penalties are the same as for any other accounts.

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Filing your accounts with Companies House

Preparing statutory accounts isn't just pulling numbers out of your bookkeeping software. The figures have to be adjusted, then formatted to meet the statutory requirements, and the filing itself runs in a sequence:

1. Gather the financial records for the year and make the adjustments, for things like depreciation, accruals, and prepayments.
2. Format the accounts for the size of company you are.
3. Get the board to approve them before they go to your members.
4. Have a director sign the balance sheet on behalf of the board and print their name underneath. Any exemption statement, such as audit exemption or the micro-entity statement, has to sit above that signature.
5. Get a Companies House password and your company's authentication code, if you do not already have them.
6. File. The Companies House online service, still known to most people as WebFiling, takes dormant accounts for a company that has never traded, micro-entity accounts, abridged accounts, and small full accounts. Anything else goes through commercial software, or on paper until 2028.
7. Keep the acknowledgement, and check the company's record on the register afterwards.

Filing close to the deadline is the risk worth avoiding, because a rejected filing buys you no time at all: if yours come back after your deadline you get the automatic penalty with nothing extra to put them right in, and paper accounts take longer to process. The requirements that catch people out are mechanical ones – the printed name under the signature, the exemption statement above it rather than below, and the company's name and number on one of the parts you send. If your deadline passes while the accounts are being examined, the register shows them as overdue until they are accepted.

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Filing your Company Tax Return with HMRC

HMRC wants three things in one submission: the CT600 form, a corporation tax computation, and the same accounts you sent Companies House, tagged in iXBRL by your software. Filing at Companies House does not file anything with HMRC. They are two submissions, and missing either one brings its own penalty.

The order to assemble it in:

1. Check your accounting period dates in your HMRC business tax account. They usually match your financial year, but a first year often splits into two periods.
2. Work out your profit for corporation tax. It is not the same figure as the profit in your accounts, and the computation is what shows the difference.
3. Complete the CT600 and any supplementary pages your company needs. Have the company's Unique Taxpayer Reference to hand.
4. File all three parts together. Paper is only an option if you have a reasonable excuse or you are filing in Welsh.

Neither HMRC nor Companies House recommends a product, so the checking is yours to do. HMRC publishes a list of Corporation Tax software suppliers on GOV.UK showing which parts of a return each one can file, and Companies House lists software for filing company accounts on GOV.UK. Some packages file to both registers from one set of figures, which is the closest thing left to the old joint service, so ask the provider before you buy. Companies House charges no filing fee for annual accounts, so what filing costs you is the software, the accountant, or both.

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If you need to change something you have already filed

Amended accounts go to Companies House by software, or on paper by post. On the HMRC side you can correct a return you have already submitted using commercial software, by sending a paper return to the Corporation Tax office, or through an agent.

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If you are going to miss your filing deadline

Apply for more time before the deadline passes, not after. Once it has gone, the penalty is automatic.

An extension is for something outside your control that stopped you filing – an unexpected illness, or a fire that destroyed your records days before the date. You apply online with your company number and the reason you need longer, attaching any supporting documents, and Companies House emails you its decision. Keep working towards the original date rather than waiting for the reply. The law caps the total filing period at 12 months, so an extension you have already had may be the only one you get. Applying for more time to file your company's accounts on GOV.UK has the form.

If the deadline has already gone, file as soon as you can. For a private company the penalty is:

• £150 if the accounts are up to a month late
• £375 from one to three months
• £750 from three to six months
• £1,500 beyond six months

File late two years in a row and the penalty is doubled. Penalties for public companies are different, and what HMRC charges for a late return is separate again – that sits with the limited company tax return deadline.

You can appeal, and it is worth reading what Companies House says will not work before you write. Its published list of grounds unlikely to succeed reads like a list of the reasons a first-time filer would give: these were your first accounts, the company is dormant, you could not afford to pay, another director was responsible, it was your accountant's fault, you did not know when or how to file, the accounts were lost in the post, or the directors were overseas. What it wants instead is a specific reason, the dates and times behind it, and evidence the circumstances were out of your control. It holds the penalty while it considers an appeal, and a rejected appeal goes to a senior casework manager, then the independent adjudicators, then the Registrar, in that order – see penalties for late filing on GOV.UK.

Late accounts carry more than a fine. Failing to deliver them on time is a criminal offence, and every director risks prosecution, an unlimited fine, and a criminal record. If the registrar concludes the company is no longer carrying on business it can strike it off the register, and the company's assets, its bank account included, can pass to the Crown. So file even when you are already late, and ask for more time before the deadline rather than after it.

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Filing it yourself, or paying an accountant

You can file your own accounts. Companies House says a company does not have to use a professional accountant to prepare them, as long as its directors are aware of their legal responsibilities. Plenty of small companies do the whole job themselves. In house means a director or someone in your own finance team; the alternative is a qualified chartered accountant (ACA, ACCA, or equivalent).

Three things decide it:

• How straightforward the accounts are. A dormant company, or a micro-entity with a handful of transactions, is a different job from a company with stock, staff, grants, or a group structure.
• What your software can produce. Filing yourself means a balance sheet in the right format for Companies House, plus a CT600, a computation, and iXBRL-tagged accounts for HMRC. Bookkeeping software does not always do all four.
• What the alternative costs. An accountant's fee buys the preparation, the tagging, and the submissions, so ask which of the two filings they are taking on.

Whoever files, put both dates in a calendar the week your year ends. And if anything in your accounts is unusual, a qualified accountant is the safer route – they can also point out reliefs and allowances you may be entitled to. Nothing here is tax or accounting advice: your own position depends on your company's circumstances, so check it with an accountant before you file.

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Anyone can read the accounts you file

The accounts you file at Companies House are public records. Anyone can look a company up and download what it has filed, free, on Find and update company information on GOV.UK.

That transparency is a key feature of UK company law: it lets customers, suppliers, investors, and lenders assess a company's financial position before they commit. A company credit check is built largely out of what you have filed, so your figures and your filing dates keep working long after you send them. Which is why it is worth thinking about not just whether your accounts are accurate, but how they present your business to the outside world.

What you cannot easily see is how they read from the outside. iwoca Credit Compass shows you that, free: your Equifax business credit score alongside the Companies House data behind it – your director records, any county court judgments, and how long the company has traded – refreshed every month.

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