Company law – confirmation of delays in IDV rollout and software-only filing of accounts; abolition of the central register

Companies House has announced that there will be delays in the implementation of some of the remaining provisions on identity verification (IDV) and software-only filings of accounts. Further provisions in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA), on central registers, have now been brought into force.

Delay to IDV rollout

The ECCTA implementation timeline had previously provided that the IDV requirements for those filing on behalf of companies would be introduced by no sooner than spring 2026. The transition plan, which sets out the timeline, was however updated in January 2026 to amend this date to “no earlier than November 2026”. The requirement for third parties filing on behalf of companies to be registered as authorised corporate service providers (ACSPs) will be brought into force at the same time.

The reason for the delay is to allow Companies House to prioritise the completion of the mandatory IDV rollout for directors and individual PSCs, and to allow time to take feedback into account.

IDV requirements for limited partnerships, corporate directors, corporate members of LLPs and corporate PSCs will be introduced “at a later date”.

For more details on the IDV regime being introduced by the ECCTA, please see our snapshot here.

Delay to software-only filing of accounts

In July 2025 Companies House announced that all companies on its register will have to file their accounts (including dormant accounts) using commercial software by 1 April 2027 and after that date web and paper-based filing routes for accounts will no longer be available.

It has now announced that these changes to accounts filing will not be introduced in April 2027 as "the reforms are still under review and a final decision will be announced shortly". It is still the case that companies will receive at least 21 months’ notice to prepare.

Abolition of the central register

Under the seventh commencement order for the ECCTA, the option for private companies to use the central register at Companies House, in lieu of keeping their own locally-held statutory registers, has been abolished.

Companies were previously able to elect to use the central register for the register of members, the register of directors, the register of directors’ residential addresses, the PSC register and the register of secretaries. However, the requirement to keep these registers, other than the register of members, locally was removed on 18 November 2025 (with the information now being filed at Companies House instead – see our blog post here) and so from that date, the option to use the central register for these four registers was removed.

All companies are still required to maintain a locally-held register of members, and with effect from 26 January 2026, private companies can no longer elect to keep information relating to their members on the central register. Any company which had previously elected to do so must create and maintain a register of members.

Companies House has published a blog post setting out the recent changes to the requirements in relation to company registers.