Identity verification for people with significant control (PSCs)

Short answer: PSCs must verify their identity, and the deadline is not tied to the company's filing dates. If you are a PSC but not a director, your window is the first 14 days of your birth month. If you are both a PSC and a director, you have two separate obligations to satisfy.

This is the part of the identity verification regime that catches people out most, because the trigger is a birthday rather than a filing date — and nobody expects Companies House to care when they were born.

Who counts as a PSC

You are a person with significant control if you meet any one of these conditions:

• you hold more than 25% of the shares
• you hold more than 25% of the voting rights
• you have the right to appoint or remove a majority of the board
• you otherwise exercise, or have the right to exercise, significant influence or control over the company

Most small UK companies have at least one PSC, and in owner-managed businesses it is usually the same person as the director. That does not merge the two obligations — it doubles them.

Your deadline depends on which description fits you

Existing PSC, not a director. You must provide your personal code within the first 14 days of your birth month. Born in June? Your window is 1–14 June. That is a genuinely short window, once a year, and if you miss it you are non-compliant until you act.

Existing PSC who is also a director. You have obligations in both capacities:

• As a director — through the company's confirmation statement.
• As a PSC — within a 14-day period starting the day after the company's confirmation statement date.

You verify once. You hold one personal code. But it has to be provided in both capacities.

New PSC added after 18 November 2025. You provide your code when you are first added to the register, or within 14 days of being added.

Corporate PSCs and relevant legal entities

If the PSC is a company rather than a person — a holding company, for instance — the rules are not yet in force. Companies House has said identity verification will be introduced at a later date for corporate directors, corporate PSCs and LLP members.

Do not read that as a permanent exemption. It is a sequencing decision, and the requirement is coming. If your structure sits behind a corporate PSC, it is worth knowing now who will eventually need to verify.

Where the real risk sits: the PSC who isn't involved

The uncomfortable structural feature of this regime is that the person who must verify is not always the person who cares.

A director who ignores verification blocks their own company's filings and feels the consequence directly. A PSC with a 30% shareholding and no operational role may have no idea the requirement exists — they don't file anything, they may not read company post, and their 14-day birth-month window passes silently.

Meanwhile the company carries the compliance problem.

If you run a company with an outside shareholder above 25%, the practical action is: find out their birth month, tell them now, and don't assume the message has landed until they send you an 11-character code.

A short checklist

1. List everyone who holds more than 25% of shares or votes, plus anyone with significant influence.
2. For each, note whether they are also a director.
3. For PSC-only people, note their birth month — that is their annual window.
4. For director-PSCs, note the company's confirmation statement date — the director obligation runs through the statement, the PSC obligation in the 14 days after it.
5. Contact anyone not yet verified now, rather than in the week their window opens.

Quick answers

I'm a PSC and a director. Do I verify twice? No — you verify once and receive one personal code. But you provide it in both capacities.

Does my company verify me, or do I? Verification is personal. Nobody can do it for you, though an authorised agent can carry out the check on your behalf.

What if the PSC refuses? The company still has an obligation. Get advice early — this can become a shareholder matter rather than an administrative one.