Do dormant company directors need to verify their identity?

By Ben Davies · Updated 25 September 2026

Yes. Every director of a UK company must verify their identity with Companies House, whether the company trades or not. The duty comes with the role of director, and a dormant company still has directors.

Why dormancy makes no difference

Identity verification became a legal requirement on 18 November 2025. The rules name the people who must verify by their role: directors, their equivalents such as LLP members, and people with significant control. They don't ask whether the company is trading.

Dormant is an accounting status. It means the company had no significant transactions in the year. It changes the accounts you file. It does not change who the company's officers are, or what the law asks of them.

A dormant company also keeps the filing that sets your date. It still files a confirmation statement (the yearly check that the company's details on the register are right) every year. If you were a director before 18 November 2025, your personal code goes in with the first confirmation statement the company files after that date. So a dormant company's director has a deadline like anyone else's, set by the company's confirmation statement date.

What happens if you don't

In short, it stops the company working normally:

• An unverified person can't be appointed as a new director.
• Continuing to act as a director after your deadline without verifying is an offence. Companies House can fine it directly, at £250 to £2,000 a penalty (capped by law at £10,000).
• The confirmation statement can't be filed until the directors are verified.
• Companies House has said it will, in future, put a note against an unverified person's name on the public register.

For the detail, see what happens if a director doesn't verify their identity.

The quickest way through

For most dormant company directors this is a short, one-off job.

1. Find your date. Our free director ID verification checker shows each director's and PSC's due date from the register.
2. Verify once, with GOV.UK One Login or through an authorised agent. You get a personal code.
3. Make sure the code is given with the company's next confirmation statement.

If you hold several dormant companies, you still verify only once. The same code covers them all.

DormantFile reads each director's and PSC's status from the register every day, shows it on the company's Directors tab, and emails you before each outstanding person's date, including on the free watchdog plan.

For each step in more detail, see our identity verification guide for dormant company directors.