Why Companies House’s New IDV Rules Matter and How Foundrs Will Make it Easier
In November 2025, Companies House introduced one of the most significant changes to UK company formation in years: a mandatory identity verification (IDV) requirement for company directors and people with significant control (PSCs).
Previously, identity verification was optional. Businesses could choose to complete it early from April 2025. But in November, the government made IDV a legal requirement for new directors and PSCs. Existing directors must also verify their identity within a 12-month transition period tied to their next confirmation statement filing.
The change is part of wider reforms under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, aimed at tackling fraud, improving transparency, and reducing abuse of the UK companies register.
The real problem: disconnected steps, no narrative
While the policy intent is clear, the experience for many founders has been anything but smooth. Today’s default journey looks something like this:
- One system verifies your identity
- Another issues your personal code
- Another asks for that code later - without context
- None of them explain the end-to-end story
Small business owners raised common complaints about the new system:
- Confusing login process: Users reported being redirected between the Companies House platform, GOV.UK One Login, and separate identity checks, sometimes with no clear success confirmation.
- Technical errors: Others described repeated failures in the GOV.UK One Login process, including app issues and unexplained error messages that blocked progress.
- Time wasted: Even technically literate users complained about long sessions and procedural dead ends.
- Post Office step confusion: Although some verification can be done at a Post Office branch, users noted that you must first enter your photo ID details online before turning up in person — a change added to guidance in late November.
Beyond anecdotal threads, broader commentary echoed this theme: many directors and PSCs either don’t understand the rules clearly yet or aren’t sure how to complete the process without paying third parties.
At Foundrs, we see this frustration as a sign of a much deeper opportunity: the current IDV process assumes everyone knows how to navigate multi-step government services, but that’s often not true.
How Foundrs is stitching the flow together
We’re not trying to replace Companies House or identity providers. What we’re building is connectivity between them - the part that’s currently missing for most founders.
Our goal is to give founders a single, coherent starting point. From there, we explain why identity verification is required, what’s required for Companies House, and what’s likely to happen next. Nobody is dropped into a government login or third-party check with no context.
When identity verification is needed, Foundrs will hand off securely to our preferred partner (Onfido) to complete the checks themselves. The intent is that founders never feel like they’ve “fallen out” of the process. Verification happens, and the result comes back into the same platform they started in.
From there, we’re building toward a flow where Foundrs submits the verification to Companies House in the way it n ow expects - triggering the creation of a personal code. Instead of that code appearing later as an unexpected requirement, we’ll surface it early, explain what it’s for, and show how it will be reused as founders grow or set up additional companies.
Behind the scenes, the journey still moves across multiple systems. But what we’re solving for is the experience: one continuous thread that helps founders understand where they are, what just happened, and what comes next.
