What is a Companies House personal code?

By Ben Davies · Updated 23 September 2026

A Companies House personal code is an 11-character code you get once you have verified your identity for Companies House. It is personal to you, not to any company. You give it to connect your checked identity to each of your roles.

Where you use it

You don't use the code to log in. You give it at the point Companies House needs to link your verified identity to a role:

• As a director, your code is given with your company's next confirmation statement. A new director gives it as part of their appointment.
• As a person with significant control (PSC), you give it yourself through Companies House's PSC verification service, inside your own 14-day window. See when a PSC's deadline falls.
• If you are both a director and a PSC of the same company, you give the code separately for each role.

Once the code has been given for a role, the public register shows a verification statement against that appointment.

One code for every company

You only verify once. The same code then covers every company you are involved in, now and in future. A director of three companies gives the same code three times, once for each company, on each company's own date.

This is why the code matters so much for people who hold several dormant companies. One check, one code, many appointments.

If you lose it

Companies House's current guidance gives three places to look:

• If you verified with GOV.UK One Login, sign in to your Companies House account and look under "Manage account". The code is shown there.
• If you verified after 8 July 2026, Companies House also emailed the code to you. Search your inbox first.
• If an authorised agent (ACSP) verified you, Companies House sent the code to the email address the agent gave for you. If nothing arrived, ask the agent which address they used. Saving the code to your own Companies House account means you can find it later.

If you think your code has been shared or seen by someone who shouldn't have it, contact Companies House and ask for a new one. They email a replacement and cancel the old one.

You can check whether your code has been given for each of your companies with our free director ID verification checker. It reads the verification dates on the public register.

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 the full picture, including the two ways to verify, see our identity verification guide for dormant company directors.