Confirmation Statement - Filing cost question
Discussion
Wonder if anyone can help?
I copy the detail I have found on Companies House below but will ask my question here.
Is it essentially £34 a year to be registered on Companies House online and then the confirmation statements cost £13 each on top?
I will be doing two a year.
The detail I have found from Companies House is copied below.
To file a confirmation statement, you'll need:
a Companies House account, which is different from a WebFiling account
the company number
the company authentication code
to pay the £34 annual fee using a credit or debit card
The detail for the annual fee is as follows:
Annual fee
It costs:
£34 to file your confirmation statement online
£62 to send us a paper form
Payment period
Your payment period is separate from your review period. It tells you when your annual fee is due.
A payment period covers 12 months starting with the date of incorporation. For older companies, each payment period covers 12 months and ends on the anniversary of the return date of your last annual return (form AR01).
You cannot change your payment period.
You only have to pay the annual fee with your first confirmation statement in the 12 month payment period. You can then file as many confirmation statements as you want in this payment period.
A new fee will be due when your company gets to the anniversary of the 12 month payment period.
Edited to add. Seems additionally confusing as you need a separate Companies House and Webfiling log in. Is that right?
Companies House password needs to be 14 characters while Webfiling can be 8.
I've requested the postal authenticaion codes and hopefully it will make more sense then.
I copy the detail I have found on Companies House below but will ask my question here.
Is it essentially £34 a year to be registered on Companies House online and then the confirmation statements cost £13 each on top?
I will be doing two a year.
The detail I have found from Companies House is copied below.
To file a confirmation statement, you'll need:
a Companies House account, which is different from a WebFiling account
the company number
the company authentication code
to pay the £34 annual fee using a credit or debit card
The detail for the annual fee is as follows:
Annual fee
It costs:
£34 to file your confirmation statement online
£62 to send us a paper form
Payment period
Your payment period is separate from your review period. It tells you when your annual fee is due.
A payment period covers 12 months starting with the date of incorporation. For older companies, each payment period covers 12 months and ends on the anniversary of the return date of your last annual return (form AR01).
You cannot change your payment period.
You only have to pay the annual fee with your first confirmation statement in the 12 month payment period. You can then file as many confirmation statements as you want in this payment period.
A new fee will be due when your company gets to the anniversary of the 12 month payment period.
Edited to add. Seems additionally confusing as you need a separate Companies House and Webfiling log in. Is that right?
Companies House password needs to be 14 characters while Webfiling can be 8.
I've requested the postal authenticaion codes and hopefully it will make more sense then.
Edited by trickywoo on Wednesday 21st August 09:42
Eric Mc said:
The Confirmation Statement filing fee is now £34 per annum. It recently increased from £13 - which it was frozen at for at least 20 years.
Thanks Eric. That makes more sense now as I thought the £34 was like a platform fee for Companies House as I have got used to the filing fee being £13..Over 20 years ago, Companies House tried to increase the fee to £20 but were blocked by the EU. EU law said that government agencies were not allowed to make any profit from statutory filing fees.
Now that we are no longer in the EU, UK government departments can charge what they like. Great to see us getting our powers back.
Now that we are no longer in the EU, UK government departments can charge what they like. Great to see us getting our powers back.
Eric Mc said:
Over 20 years ago, Companies House tried to increase the fee to £20 but were blocked by the EU. EU law said that government agencies were not allowed to make any profit from statutory filing fees.
Now that we are no longer in the EU, UK government departments can charge what they like. Great to see us getting our powers back.
Heheheh I bet that this kind of power hardly anyone wishes to suffer. Now that we are no longer in the EU, UK government departments can charge what they like. Great to see us getting our powers back.
Does the fee structure make any sense to anyone else - copied below.
On first reading it seems that you may be able to do two confirmations in 12 months and only pay one £34 fee. I.e. say its due 1st September this year. Do the confirmation statement 1st September and the 12 month period runs to 31st August (assuming your incorporation date and confirmation statement date are the same. See the payment period info from companies house copied at the bottom). You then submit the 2025 confirmation statement on 30th / 31st August. This would run to that date in 2026 when you do another confirmation statement.
What isn't clear is the meaning of "A new fee will be due when your company gets to the anniversary of the 12 month payment period". This seems to suggest you need to pay £34 every 12 months even if you don' need to submit a conformation statement until nearly another 12 months has passed.
I'm probably overthinking this for the sake of saving approximately £17 (half £34) but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Quoted from Companies House
Review period
You must file at least one confirmation statement every 12 months. Your 12 month review period starts on either:
the date your company incorporated
the date you filed your last confirmation statement
You must file your statement within 14 days of the end of your review period.
Example
Your new company is incorporated on 1 January 2022.
Your review period will start on 1 January 2022 and will end on 31 December 2022.
If you file a statement early
You can file a statement at any time during your review period. If you file a confirmation statement early, it will start a new 12 month review period.
Payment period
Your payment period is separate from your review period. It tells you when your annual fee is due.
A payment period covers 12 months starting with the date of incorporation. For older companies, each payment period covers 12 months and ends on the anniversary of the return date of your last annual return (form AR01).
You cannot change your payment period.
You only have to pay the annual fee with your first confirmation statement in the 12 month payment period. You can then file as many confirmation statements as you want in this payment period.
A new fee will be due when your company gets to the anniversary of the 12 month payment period.
On first reading it seems that you may be able to do two confirmations in 12 months and only pay one £34 fee. I.e. say its due 1st September this year. Do the confirmation statement 1st September and the 12 month period runs to 31st August (assuming your incorporation date and confirmation statement date are the same. See the payment period info from companies house copied at the bottom). You then submit the 2025 confirmation statement on 30th / 31st August. This would run to that date in 2026 when you do another confirmation statement.
What isn't clear is the meaning of "A new fee will be due when your company gets to the anniversary of the 12 month payment period". This seems to suggest you need to pay £34 every 12 months even if you don' need to submit a conformation statement until nearly another 12 months has passed.
I'm probably overthinking this for the sake of saving approximately £17 (half £34) but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Quoted from Companies House
Review period
You must file at least one confirmation statement every 12 months. Your 12 month review period starts on either:
the date your company incorporated
the date you filed your last confirmation statement
You must file your statement within 14 days of the end of your review period.
Example
Your new company is incorporated on 1 January 2022.
Your review period will start on 1 January 2022 and will end on 31 December 2022.
If you file a statement early
You can file a statement at any time during your review period. If you file a confirmation statement early, it will start a new 12 month review period.
Payment period
Your payment period is separate from your review period. It tells you when your annual fee is due.
A payment period covers 12 months starting with the date of incorporation. For older companies, each payment period covers 12 months and ends on the anniversary of the return date of your last annual return (form AR01).
You cannot change your payment period.
You only have to pay the annual fee with your first confirmation statement in the 12 month payment period. You can then file as many confirmation statements as you want in this payment period.
A new fee will be due when your company gets to the anniversary of the 12 month payment period.
Yep - it takes less than 5 minutes to submit a Confirmation Statement - unless the company has undergone significant changes since the last time they submitted one.
Already your queries have taken you much longer to think about and put together than the completion of a normal submission
Already your queries have taken you much longer to think about and put together than the completion of a normal submission
Eric Mc said:
Yep - it takes less than 5 minutes to submit a Confirmation Statement
And yet they want £34 to process 'no changes' 
Either way how its been set up is a mess.
It took me weeks to get payroll authorisation despite already being registered for payroll and having an employer payroll PAYE reference etc.
Just getting ahead with the confirmation statement as I will be on holiday in the middle of the required date giving me a week at best when I get back before I become a criminal in the eyes of companies house.
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