From the 1st May 2024, Companies House will be making changes to the fees they charge for their services, such as the Confirmation Statement, Incorporation, Change of Name and Applications to Strike-off. This follows changes to the registration process from early March, which will require an email address and ID to be provided, prior to incorporation and alongside additional submissions.

What does this mean for you?

From the 1st May 2024, the cost of 62 services provided by Companies House will be significantly increasing. A full list of the services impacted, can be found here, and a few of the more common ones are detailed below:

1. New Company Incorporations are increasing from £12.00 to £50.00.

2. If you decide to Change the company name, the cost will be increasing from £8.00 to £33.00.

3. If you decide to Strike off the company, the filing charges will increase from £8.00 to £33.00.

4. The cost of the annual Confirmation Statement, will be increasing from £13.00 to £34.00.

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Why are the prices increasing?

Companies House have stated that the changes are being made to “bring them in line with the costs of providing services”, that they are “set on a cost recovery basis” and “fees must cover the cost of the services we deliver. We do not make a profit on our fees”.

The additional fees that Companies House are incurring, is as a result of the new powers introduced through the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, and will “enable the cost of investigative and enforcement activities that promote the integrity of the register, maintain a healthy business environment and combat economic crime, to be met through fees”.

Further details on the process of reviewing Companies House fees, can be found here.

Is this justified?

For many years, the UK has been one of the cheapest countries in the world for Company Incorporations and document submissions. For example, at £12.00, the UK is the 15th cheapest, ~79p more than Chile and a ~79p less than Belarus. After the increase to £50.00, that only moves the UK to 36th in the world out of 179 analysed, ~£5.50 more than Togo and ~£8.70 less than Indonesia. Compared to countries like the UAE at ~£5,900 in incorporation fees and Italy at ~£3,860 in incorporation fees, the £50.00 remains significantly lower. Source: businessfinancing.co.uk from the Doing Business 2020 report by The World Bank.

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