Using a dormant company to protect a company name

By DormantFile · Updated 10 June 2026

One of the most common reasons a dormant company exists at all: somebody registered it purely to park a name. A future venture, a brand you'll launch "next year", the trading name of your sole-trader business you don't want a stranger incorporating first. It's a legitimate and cheap strategy — as long as you're clear about what it protects and you keep up the small annual obligations that come with it.

What a dormant company actually protects

Registering the company means nobody else can register the same name — or one Companies House considers "too like" it — at Companies House. For brand-squatting prevention at the register level, it works, it's immediate, and it costs £50 to set up.

Be honest with yourself about the limits, though:

It is not a trade mark. A registered company name doesn't stop someone trading under that name, using it as a product name, or registering it as a domain. If the brand genuinely matters, a trade mark (from £170 via the IPO) protects use, not just registration.
It doesn't protect spelling variations or similar-but-different names beyond Companies House's "same as" rules.
Protection lasts only as long as the company stays on the register — let the filings lapse and the company can be struck off, and the name becomes free for anyone the moment it's dissolved.

That last point is the trap: the whole point of the company is the name, and the name survives only if the company does.

What it costs to keep a name parked

A name-parking company that's properly dormant — no bank account activity, no transactions at all — has a short annual list:

Dormant accounts to Companies House each year (due 9 months after your accounting reference date; 21 months from incorporation for a first period longer than 12 months).
A confirmation statement at least every 12 months — £34 online.
Usually no CT600, if you've told HMRC the company is dormant — though if HMRC asks for a return, a nil one must go in.

Done yourself, the true cost is roughly £34 a year plus your attention. The attention is the expensive part: the company does nothing, so it's invisible for 11 months — and the penalties for forgetting start at £150 and double for repeat offences. Paying an accountant £150+ a year to babysit a name usually isn't worth it either.

Making the parking effortless

This is the textbook case for putting the company on rails — it should cost you minutes a year, not headspace:

Reminders you'll actually see. Email reminders from 90 days out for the accounts, nudges for the confirmation statement, and a daily Companies House sync that emails you if anything changes on the register — including a strike-off or restoration.
Two-minute filings. Dormant accounts file electronically in about two minutes; the confirmation statement takes a few minutes on the Companies House site.
Autopilot for the accounts. After the first filing, autopilot prepares next year's dormant accounts and emails you before the deadline — one click confirms the company is still dormant and files it. For a company whose entire job is to exist, that's the whole year's work done in a click. Optional, and off by default.

If you're parking several names, the same setup scales across a portfolio from £39 a year for up to ten companies.

Worth keeping at all?

Every few years, ask the question honestly: is the name still worth £34 and a few minutes annually? If the venture is dead, closing the company ends the chore — but releases the name. If it's genuinely "maybe one day", the carrying cost is one of the cheapest options on the table — see dissolve vs keep for the full trade-off.

Key points

A dormant company blocks anyone registering the same (or too-similar) name at Companies House — but it's not a trade mark and doesn't stop use of the name.
The name is protected only while the company survives: miss the filings and a strike-off hands the name back to the world.
True annual cost: £34 for the confirmation statement, a dormant accounts filing, and the discipline to remember both.
Autopilot plus deadline reminders reduce a parked name's upkeep to about one click a year.