UK Companies House ID Verification Checker & Monitor (ECCTA)

Paste UK company numbers or names. For each company you get every director and person with significant control (PSC), with their Companies House identity verification status and due date, taken straight from the official Companies House register. You also get flags such as due before 18 Nov 2026 and due within 30 days. Monitor mode watches a client book and reports only what changed since your last run.

No API key needed. $0.01 per company checked, whatever the number of people.

Why it matters

Under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, identity verification became a legal requirement on 18 November 2025. Existing directors verify with their company's next confirmation statement, during a transition that ends on 18 November 2026; PSCs have their own 14-day windows. Each person's due date is on the register, and this actor reads it. Sources: GOV.UK: when you need to verify, GOV.UK news, rollout from 18 Nov 2025, SI 2025/1118 reg. 4.

Who uses this

• Accountants, company secretaries and ACSPs: build a chase list for the whole client book before confirmation statements are due.
• KYC, onboarding and credit teams: check whether a counterparty's directors are verified.
• Lenders and investors: monitor a portfolio and get alerts when verification is removed or overdue.

Inputs

Input	Default	Notes
Mode	check	monitor saves a snapshot per watchlist and then reports changes
Company numbers	00445790, 04366849	Leading zeros added automatically; SC, NI, OC prefixes are fine
Company names	–	Uses the Companies House search; checks the top match (or more)
Flag due on or before	2026-11-18	Sets dueBeforeCutoff
Flag due within (days)	30	Sets dueWithinDays
Include PSCs / former / only outstanding	yes / no / no
Watchlist name	default	Keep separate snapshots per client book
Max companies	100	Up to 2,000 per run. Default run timeout is 1 hour, which fits about 2,000 companies
Your own Companies House API key	–	Optional. Books over about 500 companies run faster with your own free Companies House key, because our key's rate limit is shared by everyone using this actor

Output

One item per company (the Companies view). The People view gives one row per person.

{
  "companyNumber": "00445790", "companyName": "TESCO PLC", "companyStatus": "active", "overallStatus": "all-verified",
  "peopleInScope": 10, "verifiedCount": 10, "outstandingCount": 0, "overdueCount": 0,
  "earliestDueOn": null, "anyDueBeforeCutoff": false, "confirmationStatementNextDue": "2027-07-02",
  "statusCounts": {"not-required": 1, "verified": 10},
  "people": [
    {"name": "BETHELL, Melissa", "roleType": "officer", "role": "director", "verificationStatus": "verified",
     "verificationDueOn": null, "daysUntilDue": null, "dueBeforeCutoff": false, "dueWithinDays": false,
     "identityVerifiedOn": "2025-07-29", "verificationStatementSuppliedOn": "2026-07-01", "verifiedViaAgent": "DE PINNA LLP ACSP"},
    {"name": "TAYLOR, Christopher Jon", "roleType": "officer", "role": "secretary", "verificationStatus": "not-required"}
  ],
  "changeType": null, "searchQuery": null, "registerUrl": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00445790"
}

(Trimmed real output from a live run on 23 Oct 2026: the values shown match the sample file, but some fields and 9 of Tesco's 11 people are left out. samples/sample_check_live_2026-10-23.json has the full run: a live plc, a dissolved company, a company with overdue directors, a name search, an invalid number and a number that does not exist. samples/sample_monitor_live_2026-10-23.json is a real two-run monitor test. Nothing changed between the runs, so it shows a baseline and unchanged rows, not a change.)

Person verificationStatus

• verified: a verification statement is on the register.
• due: there is a due date and it has not passed.
• overdue: the due date has passed and there is no statement.
• no-date-published: in scope, but the register has no date yet. For directors, see the confirmation statement date.
• verification-removed: the statement was removed.
• not-required: for example, a secretary.
• not-in-scope-yet: corporate officers or corporate/legal PSCs. Companies House will phase these in later.
• former: resigned or ceased.

Company overallStatus is all-verified, action-needed, overdue, no-people-in-scope or company-closed (dissolved or closed: nobody needs to verify, so nobody is flagged).

Rows that could not be checked are free and carry an error message: not-found (no such company number), invalid-number (not 8 characters, so it is never sent to Companies House) or error (Companies House did not answer). For company names, searchQuery shows which name led to the company. The search always returns its closest match, so check the number is the one you meant.

Monitor mode: the first run of a watchlist saves a baseline and outputs every company with changeType: "baseline". Later runs output only companies with changes (changeType: "changed"). Each change in changes[] is one of:

• status-changed
• due-date-changed
• person-added
• person-removed

Example (mock) change row, from the offline test data, not a real company:

{"companyNumber": "00000001", "changeType": "changed", "changes": [{"name": "JONES, Bob", "role": "director",
  "change": "status-changed", "previousStatus": "due", "newStatus": "verified", "previousDueOn": "2026-11-14", "newDueOn": "2026-11-14"}]}

Schedule a weekly run under Apify → Schedules.

What Companies House publishes (and what we use)

For each officer appointment and PSC notification, the official Public Data API returns identity_verification_details with these fields:

• appointment_verification_statement_due_on
• appointment_verification_statement_date (PSCs only: when their window opens)
• appointment_verification_start_on
• appointment_verification_end_on
• identity_verified_on
• authorised_corporate_service_provider_name

We report these fields as published and do not infer anyone's identity.

Pricing

$0.01 per company checked, including all its directors and PSCs. Companies that are not found are free. There is no start fee and no platform usage charge. In monitor mode every company on the watchlist counts as checked on each run, even when nothing changed. A 200-client book checked weekly costs $2 per run.

Speed and limits

Companies House allows 600 requests per 5 minutes. A company needs about 3 requests, so a run handles about 180 companies per 5 minutes. The actor paces itself and backs off automatically if it gets HTTP 429. The default input finishes in seconds. Runs are capped at 2,000 companies, and the default run timeout is 1 hour. The key is shared by all users, so books over about 500 companies run faster with your own free key (see Inputs).

Lawful use and personal data

• Director and PSC details are public register data that Companies House publishes so the public can see who runs and controls UK companies.
• We keep only what is needed for the check: name, role, appointment or notification date, nature of control (for PSCs) and the verification fields above. We do not output addresses or dates of birth, even where the API provides them, and we do not add data from any other source.
• If you are subject to UK GDPR, you need your own lawful basis, typically legitimate interests, such as client compliance, KYC or due diligence. Use the output for that purpose only. Do not use it to profile individuals, for direct marketing to individuals, or to build people databases. Keep it no longer than you need. See Companies House's guidance on using register data.

Licence, attribution and disclaimer

Contains public sector information from Companies House licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by Companies House.

Not legal advice. Statuses reflect the register at the time of the run and can lag behind filings. For your own obligations, check GOV.UK or ask a professional adviser.