Your annual accounts are due

Sections 441 to 442 of the Companies Act 2006 set the deadline for delivering accounts to Companies House. A private company must deliver its accounts within nine months of the accounting reference date. A company's first accounts are due nine months after the first anniversary of incorporation, or three months after the end of the first accounting reference period, whichever is later. Most small companies file small-company or micro-entity accounts, and the accountant usually prepares and files them.

Late filing carries an automatic penalty for a private company. It is £150 when the accounts are not more than one month late, £375 for one to three months, £750 for three to six months, and £1,500 for more than six months. The penalty is doubled if accounts are filed late in two successive financial years. Late accounts are one of the most common reasons a company is fined or struck off, so the deadline discipline matters more than any other duty in the annual cycle.

Forward note, dated for planning: from April 2028 accounts must be filed using commercial software, and small companies must file a profit and loss account. That filing-channel change was confirmed in June 2026 and is handled by the separate ECCTA 2023 agent toolkit. See the ECCTA 2023 tool →