There are over 23 types of corporate body held on the register. These include a number of corporate body types in addition to those companies covered by the Companies Act 2006. Each corporate body type has its own requirements to provide information to Companies House, as outlined in various pieces of legislation and royal acts. Further information on the different company types can be found in the Companies House guidance. Since 2004, private limited companies have consistently accounted for over 96% of all corporate body types. During this time, the three corporate bodies accounting for the highest proportion of all corporate bodies remained unchanged, being private limited companies, limited liability partnerships (LLPs) and limited partnerships. These three corporate body types consistently accounted for over 98% of all corporate body types. Table 1: Breakdown of corporate body types on the total UK register for 2018 to 2019
Corporate body typeNumberPercentage of all corporate bodies *Private Limited4,040,77992.8 *Private Limited by Guarantee/No Share Capital108,4832.5 Limited Liability Partnership52,4291.2 Limited Partnership51,7611.2 *Private Limited by Guarantee/No Share Capital/(Use of Limited Exemption)41,9231.0 Charitable Incorporated Organisation20,8630.5 Overseas Company12,2360.3 Industrial and Provident Society9,5430.2 *Public Limited Company6,5290.1 Other corporate body types9,0280.2 Total of corporate body types4,353,574100.0 Source: Companies register activities for 2018 to 2019, Companies House. Although the composition of the register overall has remained stable, there have been some minor fluctuations within the individual company types:
Charitable Incorporated Organisations (CIOs) were introduced in late 2017. The Charity Commission allowed charitable companies to convert to CIOs. This is an incorporated structure designed for charities and needs to be registered with the Charity Commission. For the financial year of 2018-19, there were 16,999 CIOs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (0.4% of all corporate bodies) and 3,864 Scottish CIOs (0.1% of all corporate bodies).
Limited liability partnerships (LLPs) were introduced in 2001. They gradually increased in number to make up 1.8% of the register in the years 2012-2014. The proportion of LLPs has since gradually declined, and they now account for 1.2% of the register.
Limited partnerships have grown from 0.5% of the register at the end of 2004 to 1.2% at the end of March 2019. This has been primarily due to large increases in the numbers of limited partnerships in Scotland between 2012 and 2013 and they continue to make up a large share of limited partnerships on the register.
Public limited companies have been declining in number since 2008. They now make up only 0.1% of the register overall.
Although these changes are small, they show the subtle ways in which the composition of the register is changing outside of private limited companies. Table C1, in the workbook that accompanies this publication, displays numbers and percentages of all corporate body types on the register from 2004 to 2019. Further information on public limited companies, limited partnerships and limited liability partnerships is available in tables A3, B2 and B4, respectively.