ECSH32734 - Companies House
Source: gov.uk (2025-02-06)


The Companies House (https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about-a-company) register contains public information about all companies incorporated in the UK. It also holds information about other types of businesses, such as limited liability partnerships (LLPs) and community interest companies (CICs).

Companies House should be monitored through the life of your case. Particularly at key stages such as issuing a letter to the registered address and visiting because you need to be aware of up-to-date information on the business. Where there has been a change, you must establish whether the business has reflected this in their anti-money laundering registration details. You can check this in Enterprise Tax Management Platform (ETMP) (see ECSH32731 (https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/economic-crime-supervision-handbook/ecsh32731)). If not, you may need to consider issuing a type 3 penalty for failure to notify (https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/economic-crime-supervision-handbook/ecsh82800) a material change (https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/economic-crime-supervision-handbook/ecsh82800).

You must check if a company is still active so you can work your case in the typical way. If not, see below:

Where the company is dormant

You should write to the business owners to understand the likelihood of them trading again and the circumstances around this. You should consider suspending the business until they have the ability to trade.

If the intelligence on the case suggests the business is still trading, you should continue to work the case.

Where the company is active but in liquidation or administration

You should check if this meets the rejection criteria on the Project Information Document (https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/economic-crime-supervision-handbook/ecsh32705) (PID) and discuss with your manager and the Sector Specialist.

Following your discussion, you may be asked to continue to work your case as normal. The insolvency practitioner will be your contact for the business. Where the insolvency practitioner doesn’t have the information, you should consider using powers under regulation 66 of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (MLR 2017) to compel the beneficial owners, officers or managers (BOOMS) to provide specified information/documents or attend a meeting.

Note - where an insolvency practictioner is appointed, unless the business is still actively trading, the insolvency practitioner is not a BOOM and the business' registration does not need to be updated to include them - see ECSH45791 (https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/economic-crime-supervision-handbook/ecsh45791) for more information.

Where the company is dissolved

You should check if this meets the rejection criteria on the Project Information Document (PID) and discuss with your manager.

You should also use Companies House to check:
- The Registered office address – this is where letters should be addressed. Please note this must be an “appropriate address” as required by regulation 28 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/56/section/28/enacted) of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, for example not a PO box.
- Nature of business – does it fit with the information you know about the business?
- People – who is running the business and does this correlate to our registered information?
Company Secretary – this is the person to whom all correspondence should be addressed. If there is no company secretary or the company secretary is another limited company, then you should address it to any director of the business.

Directors – you may want to check what other businesses they’re associated with details of current and previous directors - have all BOOMs been declared, or changes reported?

Companies House is also used to find any beneficial owners that may need to be included on a business application. See ECSH (https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/economic-crime-supervision-handbook/ecsh45792)45792 (https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/economic-crime-supervision-handbook/ecsh45792).

If you find that information held on Companies House about their own business is incorrect, you should ask the business to update it.

(This content has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000)

Open Corporates shows you the equivalent of Companies House in many other jurisdictions.

You may additionally see excerpts from Companies House when conducting transaction testing, as businesses may use the information on the register as part of their customer due diligence checks.