ECCTA Implementation Timeline: What Businesses Must Know
August 6th 2025
Important Update: Identity Verification for Directors and PSCs
From 18th November 2025, all company directors and people with significant control (PSCs) will be legally required to verify their identity with Companies House. This change is part of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023.
Here’s what you need to know:
- New directors must verify their identity before being appointed to a company.
- Existing directors must confirm they’ve verified their identity when filing their next confirmation statement, during a 12-month transition period.
- Existing PSCs will also need to verify their identity within 12 months from 18th November 2025. We’ll let you know exactly when and how to do this based on your situation.
- Directors and PSCs will be able to check their deadlines on the Companies House register.
You can read the full government update here.
January 20th 2025
Previously, we posted about the new act (Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act) which received Royal Assent and passed into law on 26th October 2023.
There have been various changes that are already in place since 4th March 2024.
Companies House has published its intended implementation timeline for the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023. This shows how more measures will be introduced under the act over the next few years.
Companies House will give you plenty of notice before you need to take action. Timelines are dependent on secondary legislation and will be kept under review.
There will be key moments on the implementation timeline that are important to you. So, it’s important that you start to prepare, and that you keep your registered email address (if we handle the ongoing Company Secretarial service for you, then our head of CoSec – Georgia will have dedicated email address registered and monitored) and other details up to date, and make sure your emails are monitored. You can also keep up to date by visiting the Changes to UK company law website. This is regularly updated with new information.
Over the next coming months, we will be posting about the timeline, so keep a look out on our socials.
By winter 2024 into 2025
Companies House should be able to:
- Expedite the striking off of companies where the registrar has concluded the company has been formed for a false basis.
- Annotate the register in a wider range of circumstances, such as when a company has a director who has been disqualified but has yet to terminate their appointment on the register, or where Companies House has issued a statutory notice to require more information from a person, but the matter remains unresolved.
By spring 2025
Companies House should be able to:
- Carry out checks on Authorised Corporate Service Providers (ACSPs) to authorise them to carry out verification services – ACSPs will be required to be registered in the UK and be subject to the UK’s anti-money laundering regime. We will be registered ACSPs to carry out these identification checks.
- Allow individuals to voluntarily verify their identity.
- Receive and assess applications from individuals seeking to have residential addresses suppressed from public disclosure in certain circumstances.
By summer 2025
Companies House should be able to:
- Allow access on request to certain trust information on the Register of Overseas Entities.
By autumn 2025
Companies House should be able to:
- Make identity verification a compulsory part of incorporation and new appointments for new directors and PSCs.
- Begin the 12-month transition phase to require more than 7 million existing directors and PSCs to verify their identity – the identity verification will happen as part of the annual confirmation statement filing.
By spring 2026
Companies House should be able to:
- Make identity verification of the presenters a compulsory part of filing any document.
- Require third party agents filing on behalf of companies to be registered as an ACSP.
- Reject documents delivered by disqualified directors as they will be prohibited from doing so, unless they are delivered by an ACSP for specified filings permitted by law.
By the end of 2026
Companies House should be able to:
- Require all limited partnerships to submit more information, providing greater transparency for users of the register.
- Complete the transition period for all individuals on the register requiring identity verification, and start compliance activity against those who have failed to verify their identity.
- Facilitate greater cross-checking of information and data between Companies House and other public and private sector bodies.
