What are dormant company accounts?

By Ben Davies · Updated 5 October 2026

Dormant company accounts are a simplified set of annual accounts that dormant companies file with Companies House. They confirm that the company had no significant accounting transactions during the period.

What they contain

Unlike full accounts (which include a profit and loss statement, balance sheet, and notes), dormant accounts are minimal:

• A balance sheet showing the company's position at the period end
• A statement that the company was dormant throughout the period
• The director's name

The dormant accounts you file at Companies House don't need a profit and loss account.

Dormant doesn't mean empty. For many dormant companies the balance sheet is just the nominal value of the issued shares, often £1 or £100. But a company that traded once and still owes money, is owed money or holds assets can still be dormant, and its dormant accounts show those figures — as long as nothing about them changes in the year: nothing paid or collected, no interest added, nothing written off or written down. See can a dormant company have assets and liabilities?

Who needs to file them

Every UK limited company registered at Companies House must file annual accounts — even if dormant. If your company qualifies as dormant under the Companies Act definition, you file the simplified dormant version.

If HMRC sends the company a notice to deliver a Company Tax Return, you need to file a CT600 with HMRC as well — a nil return, showing no profit and no tax.

When they're due

Accounts are due 9 months after your accounting reference date (first accounts covering more than 12 months are due by the later of 21 months from incorporation or 3 months after the period end). Late filing triggers automatic penalties starting at £150.

How to file

We file them for you. DormantFile prepares the accounts and sends them straight to Companies House through its filing route for software, whether the balance sheet is just the share capital or carries figures from the company's trading years — see how it works. Plans start at £19/year, and cover the nil CT600 too when HMRC asks for one.

Three kinds of company are different. A community interest company files its accounts another way, even when dormant. A dormant LLP files its own version of these accounts — same deadlines, members instead of directors, and no CT600 (any HMRC return is the notice-driven SA800, the Partnership Tax Return, which DormantFile also files, as a nil return, when HMRC asks). A company limited by guarantee — the usual shape of a flat management or RTM company — files the same dormant accounts as any other company, just with no share capital and the correct legal form on the document.

Read the full guide: How to file dormant company accounts with Companies House

To see what the finished document contains, section by section, there's a real example of dormant company accounts.