Companies House late accounts
One table decides, and it is not cumulative: the penalty is the band the accounts land in when they finally arrive. A private company a day over the month line owes £375 instead of £150, a plc pays five times the private figure, and when two years run late in a row the whole table doubles.
Which band the lateness lands in
the band that applies the other bands
Penalty table effective 1 February 2009, reg 4 SI 2008/497; verified unchanged against the Companies House guidance of 16 January 2026, checked 18 July 2026.
The penalty is automatic and applies to accounts only, s. 453 Companies Act 2006. The filing window is nine months from the end of the accounting reference period for a private company or LLP and six for a public company; first accounts run on the longer 21-month and 18-month clocks. The statutory bands run in calendar months from the due date; the slider counts days, so a boundary can sit a day or two either side of the real one.
The doubling applies where accounts were also late for the previous financial year, for years beginning on or after 6 April 2008, and the guidance applies it to LLPs alike. An extension can only be sought before the deadline passes, and only for exceptional reasons. The registrar’s discretion on appeal is narrow, and the guidance lists what does not usually count on its own: a dormant company, reliance on an accountant, first accounts, directors abroad.
The confirmation statement has no penalty table of its own, though the registrar can now impose financial penalties under a separate discretionary regime, and late accounts can end in strike-off or prosecution alongside the fee. The corporation tax clock at HMRC runs separately from all of this. Whether circumstances are exceptional is the registrar’s call, and none of it is arithmetic. How we check these numbers.