As well as filing accounts with Companies House, there is a further requirement to check that the information Companies House holds about your company is correct every year. This is facilitated by the filing of an annual company confirmation statement. The confirmation statement was introduced in June 2016 and replaced the annual return form.

A confirmation statement must usually be filed at Companies House once every 12 months and rather than resubmitting data every year, the confirmation statement only needs to be updated if you have changes to report. If there are no changes then you just need to confirm the information is correct and submit the statement.

The following details need to be checked:

• the details of your registered office, directors, secretary and the address where you keep your records
• your statement of capital and shareholder information if your company has shares
• your SIC code (the number that identifies what your company does)
• your register of 'people with significant control' (PSC)

Any necessary updates to the statement of capital, shareholder information and SIC codes can be made when submitting the confirmation statement. However, the confirmation statement cannot be used to report changes to your company’s officers, the registered office address, the address where you keep your records and people with significant control. These changes must be filed separately with Companies House and this should be done at the same time or prior to submitting the confirmation statement. The confirmation statement can be filed online (at a cost of £13) or by post (at a cost of £40).