Company law · The annual spine

Your annual accounts are due

Companies Act 2006 s441 to s442 · 9 months after year end

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 twenty-one months after incorporation. 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 system. See the ECCTA 2023 tool →

The Annual Accounts working file in the ComplianceSME Companies Act 2006 system records your accounting reference date, the filing deadline that follows from it, and the accounts route your company qualifies for. It asks you what is prepared, who files it, and by when, one question at a time, then produces the evidence that the deadline was met. It does not prepare the accounts themselves; it holds you to the obligation and records the proof.

Everything beyond the Companies Act 2006 has its own system in the full register.