Can you appeal a Companies House late filing penalty? What works and what doesn't

By Ben Davies · Updated 19 September 2026

A Companies House late filing penalty arrives automatically the day after the accounts deadline, and the amount depends only on how late the accounts were when they were finally delivered. Directors of dormant companies are often the most surprised to receive one, and the most likely to appeal on grounds that never succeed. This guide sets out what an appeal can and cannot do.

First, check the penalty is right

An appeal asks for a correct penalty to be cancelled. Before that, it is worth a minute to check whether the penalty is correct at all, because three things go wrong often enough to look for, and all three are visible on the public register.

The accounts were delivered on time. The penalty is fixed by the date Companies House recorded the accounts as received, not the date you sent them. If the register's filing history shows a date on or before the deadline, the penalty has been raised against the wrong date, and the register is the evidence.

The amount is in the wrong band. The charge steps up at one month, three months and six months late. If the register's delivery date falls in a cheaper band than the amount charged implies, the figure is wrong even though the penalty itself is not.

It has been doubled when last year was not late. The doubling applies only where the previous year's accounts were also delivered late. If the previous year arrived on or before its own deadline, the doubling should not be there.

None of these is an excuse, which is exactly why they work where excuses do not. You are not asking Companies House to overlook anything. You are pointing at its own record and asking it to look again.

The only excuse that works: exceptional circumstances

Companies House will cancel a penalty only where something outside the company's control made it impossible to file on time. Its own examples are of that scale: a fire or flood destroying records shortly before the deadline, the serious illness or death of the only director close to the deadline, or a failure in Companies House's own systems on the day.

The test is exceptional. It is not enough that the circumstances were unfortunate or that the delay was short.

Reasons that are rejected every time

Companies House publishes the reasons it will not accept. All of them come up constantly:

• The company was dormant or not trading. A dormant company has the same deadline as any other.
• You did not know when the accounts were due, or did not receive a reminder.
• Your accountant, agent or software failed to file. The directors remain responsible.
• The accounts were only a day or two late, or were posted in time but arrived late. Delivery, not posting, is what counts.
• It is the company's first offence, or the company cannot afford the penalty.
• The director was abroad, ill (short of the exceptional level above), or busy.

If your reason is on that list, appealing costs time and changes nothing. Pay the penalty, or ask for time to pay if the company genuinely cannot, and make sure it never happens again.

HMRC is the one place where dormancy is a real argument rather than an excuse: where the company was outside the charge to Corporation Tax for the whole period, there is a route to having a Corporation Tax penalty discharged, set out in our guide to appealing an HMRC penalty on a dormant company. It has no bearing on the Companies House penalty, which stands on its own facts.

How the appeal process runs

1. File the accounts first. An appeal is only considered once the accounts have been delivered. Filing late also stops the penalty climbing into the next band.
2. Appeal in writing, with evidence. Set out the exceptional circumstance, when it happened relative to the deadline, and attach anything that proves it — medical letters, an insurer's report, a police reference. Companies House usually suspends recovery while an appeal is open.
3. If rejected, ask for a review. A refused appeal can be escalated to a senior casework team, and after that to the Independent Adjudicator. Each stage looks at the same facts, so new evidence — not a longer letter — is what moves a decision.

If the appeal fails

The penalty must be paid. Companies House will agree an instalment plan where paying in one go is not possible. Leaving it unpaid leads to debt collection and, in time, court action against the company. A penalty already issued survives the company being struck off later.

The double-penalty trap

File late again the following year and the penalty for that year is doubled. A company that has just paid £150 for being a few weeks late can be looking at £750 twelve months on. This is the single strongest reason to fix the cause, not just the symptom.

What to do instead of appealing

If the real reason was that the deadline crept up unnoticed — which is what "dormant, so I forgot" comes down to — the fix is a reminder that cannot be forgotten. DormantFile's free watchdog reads the deadline from Companies House and emails you 90, 30, 14, 7, 3 and 1 day before it, for one company, with no card needed. On a paid plan the accounts and the nil CT600 are filed from the same place, in about two minutes each.

Key points

• Check the penalty's own facts before arguing about excuses: the delivery date on the register, the band it implies, and whether the doubling is right.
• Only exceptional, external circumstances succeed as an excuse. Dormancy, forgetting, a missing reminder and an agent's failure never do.
• File the accounts before appealing; the penalty band is fixed by delivery date.
• A rejected appeal can be reviewed twice, but only new evidence changes the outcome.
• Late two years running doubles the penalty.