What happens if you miss the Companies House filing deadline?
Short answer
Companies House applies late filing penalties automatically, with no warning. For a private company, accounts filed up to one month late cost £150, rising to £1,500 beyond six months. Penalties double if you file late two years running, and continued failure to file can lead to your company being struck off.
There is no grace period and no reminder letter that pauses the clock — the moment your accounts deadline passes, a late filing penalty is triggered automatically. Annual accounts must reach Companies House within 9 months of your company's accounting reference date, and a Confirmation Statement must be filed at least once every 12 months (£34 online).
How much the penalties are
- Up to 1 month late: £150
- 1 to 3 months late: £375
- 3 to 6 months late: £750
- More than 6 months late: £1,500
These figures apply to private companies, and they double if the company files late in two consecutive years. The penalty attaches to the company, but persistent failure to file is also a criminal offence for which directors can be prosecuted.
Can you get more time?
You can apply for a short extension, but only before the deadline passes, and only for genuine reasons outside your control — such as a fire destroying the company's records or the death of the person responsible for filing. Changing accountant, software problems, or cash flow difficulties are not accepted grounds. If you think you will miss the deadline, apply as early as possible.
Note that a dormant company that has never traded still has full filing obligations — dormant company accounts are simplified, but they are not optional.
If the company continues to ignore its filing obligations, Companies House will move to strike it off the register. Strike-off means the company ceases to exist as a legal entity, and anything it owns — bank balances, property, intellectual property — passes automatically to the Crown as bona vacantia. Restoring a struck-off company is possible but costly and slow, so it is far better to file something late and pay the penalty than to let the company drift towards strike-off. If the company genuinely will not trade again, consider a voluntary strike-off instead, which ends the filing burden in a controlled way.
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