What do I have to file for companies I registered just to protect a name?

By Ben Davies · Updated 28 September 2026

The full set, per company. Companies House has no way to hold a name without a company behind it — there is no reservation list — so every name you've parked is a live private limited company with the same three annual obligations as any other. The fact that four of them belong to you and do nothing changes none of it.

For each name-protection company, every year:

• Dormant accounts to Companies House — due 9 months after its accounting reference date, or 21 months from incorporation for the first set. Automatic penalties from £150 per company if late, doubling for a repeat.
• A confirmation statement (the yearly check that the company's details on the register are right) at least every 12 months, £50 online. Four companies, four statements, £200.
• A nil CT600 to HMRC — only if HMRC has asked. HMRC opens a Corporation Tax record for each new company. If it issues a notice to deliver a return for a period, that return is due, nil figures and all. If you've told HMRC the company is dormant and it has agreed, nothing is due until it asks again. Check each company separately; one being told "no return needed" says nothing about the others. The free CT600 checker gives a per-company answer.

Two things that don't multiply:

• Identity verification. Under ECCTA you verify once, as a person, and that verification is reused across every company you're a director or PSC of.
• The watching. All of your companies can sit on one dashboard, each with its own deadlines, reminders and register watch.

Keeping them dormant costs discipline, not money

A name-protection company has no reason to have a bank account, and the safest ones don't. If one does, the way owners lose dormant status is nearly always the same: something moves through it. The £50 confirmation statement fee itself doesn't count — section 1169 disregards it, even paid from the company's own account. A monthly account charge or a few pence of interest does count. So can the company paying you back for a cost you covered — even the fee, because the repayment is a payment to you, not to Companies House, so the exemption may not cover it. Pay every company's fees personally, never reimburse yourself, keep any account still (or close it), and each one stays dormant under section 1169 indefinitely. The accidentally trading trap lists the other slips.

Why this matters more for name protection than for anything else

The company exists to hold the name, and the name is protected only while the company is on the register. Let the filings lapse and Companies House moves to strike the company off; once it is dissolved, the name is free for anyone to register the next day, and restoring a dissolved company to get it back costs far more than the filings would have. So the filing calendar is the protection.

That is the argument for putting all of them on rails. DormantFile files dormant accounts and any nil CT600 for each company, groups the reminders for all of them rather than sending one email per company, watches the register for strike-off notices and for changes to each company's directors, address, owners or name, and once a company has filed with us can put next year's accounts on autopilot. The Multiple plan covers up to ten companies for £39 a year — £3.90 per parked name, on top of the £50 confirmation statement each still owes Companies House.

Is each name still worth £50 and a filing a year? See using a dormant company to protect a company name for what a company does and doesn't protect — it isn't a trade mark — and dissolve vs keep for the honest test to apply every couple of years. For the per-company checklist, see I have three dormant companies — what do I file?

Read the full guide: Using a dormant company to protect a company name