Does Companies House accept 'dormant' as a reason to appeal?

By Ben Davies · Updated 19 September 2026

No, and it is worth being blunt about it. "The company was dormant" sits on the list of reasons Companies House publishes as not accepted, alongside not knowing the deadline and not receiving a reminder. A dormant company (no money in or out of its books all year — Companies House calls these 'significant accounting transactions') has exactly the same accounts deadline as a trading one, and the penalty lands the day after it.

Two other things do work.

The penalty may simply be wrong

An appeal asks for a correct penalty to be cancelled. Before that, it is worth checking whether the penalty is correct at all, because the public register holds the evidence either way: the date Companies House actually recorded the accounts as delivered, the band that date puts them in, and whether last year's accounts were late at all — doubling applies only if they were. Our guide to appealing a Companies House late filing penalty works through all three.

None of those three is an excuse — they are facts already sitting on the register, which is why checking them works where an excuse does not. You are pointing at Companies House's own record and asking it to look again.

Exceptional circumstances

The one published ground. Companies House means events of real scale and close to the deadline: a fire or flood that destroyed the records, the serious illness or death of the only director, a failure in its own systems on the day. Unfortunate is not the test, and neither is a short delay.

An appeal is only considered once the accounts have actually been delivered, so filing comes first in every case. Filing also stops the penalty climbing into the next band.

If neither applies

Pay it, or ask for time to pay if the company genuinely cannot — Companies House will agree instalments. Then fix the cause, because the penalty doubles if the accounts are late again the following year.