How to check a UK company before you onboard, pay or partner with it

A Companies House check is the quickest way to learn whether a UK company exists, what state it is in and who the register says is behind it. Companies House holds the UK register of companies and makes the information available to the public. That makes it the natural first step before you onboard, pay or partner with a company.

That line sits on the Companies House search page. It means the register shows what a company has told Companies House. Companies House checks that filings are complete and can query or remove information, but it does not confirm that what was filed is true. A company can be active, up to date with its filings and still be run by someone who is not who they say they are.

The register is also getting stronger. Identity verification became a legal requirement for individual directors and people with significant control (PSCs) on 18 November 2025. Existing directors give their Companies House personal code with the company's next confirmation statement, new companies give it when they register, and PSCs have a 14-day window set by their situation. Until every company has filed that statement, not every director on the register will have verified. Corporate directors and officers of corporate PSCs are not yet covered. Check the current GOV.UK guidance for the rules that apply to each role.

The free Company Trust Check reads the Companies House record for a company number or name. It reports a set of findings, each with a severity of positive, info, watch, review or high, and combines them into one of four tiers: Clear, Watch, Review or High risk.

You can name the person you are dealing with. The tool then tells you whether that name appears as an active officer or PSC, appears only in historic records, or is not found. Enter the full name as it appears on the register; a nickname or a different spelling will come back as not found. It matches names only, so a match does not prove the person on the call is the person on the register.

Two more points matter. First, the tool reads accounts only where it can parse them, so a missing figure is not a pass: it reports revenue as found or as not publicly disclosed. Second, micro-entity accounts are valid statutory filings, but GOV.UK describes them as simpler accounts that meet statutory minimum requirements, so ask for more where size matters.

The tool asks you to pick a relationship: client, supplier, contractor, introducer or partner. It records the choice on the report but runs the same checks for each. The choice matters for what you do next, because each relationship engages different rules. What follows describes the main ones and where they apply. Whether a rule applies to your firm depends on its permissions and activities.

The Company Trust Check states that it does not verify bank ownership, sanctions, politically exposed persons (PEPs), adverse media, fraud risk, live trading, affordability, creditworthiness or the identity of the person emailing you. Each of those is a separate step. Which ones you need depends on the relationship and your risk assessment.

Sanctions screening has changed this year. The UK Sanctions List became the only source of UK sanctions designations on 28 January 2026, and the OFSI Consolidated List is no longer updated. If your procedure still tells staff to search the OFSI list, update it. The separate Russia list of entities subject to financial and investment restrictions is not part of the UK Sanctions List. If you deal in securities or grant loans or credit, check it too, including entities those named companies own.

For PEPs, regulation 35 requires risk-management systems to determine whether a customer or its beneficial owner is a PEP, a family member or a known close associate. Where one is found, it requires senior management approval, adequate measures to establish source of wealth and source of funds, and enhanced ongoing monitoring.

That advice from the FCA is aimed at clone firms, where fraudsters copy a genuine authorised firm. It is a good habit for any counterparty claiming a permission: use the contact details on the FCA Firm Checker or Financial Services Register, not the ones in the email. The FCA notes those details are supplied by the firm, so call the number and confirm. The Warning List holds firms the FCA has published warnings about, so a firm that is not on it has not been cleared.

All names, figures and dates in this example are invented. The report came back with eight findings and a tier of Review.

The Review finding was the one that mattered. Samuel Rowe had resigned as a director six weeks earlier. The register showed one new director, Priya Anand, and one PSC, who was neither of them. Quillmere had not told Kestrel.

Kestrel approved Quillmere with conditions. Quillmere could introduce customers but could not describe or market Kestrel's services without Kestrel's prior sign-off. Kestrel re-ran the check at six months and again whenever Quillmere gave notice of a change in control.

In our experience, weak counterparty files usually fail on process, not on the check itself. The check was done, but no one can show what was found, who looked or what was decided. Fix that with a short written procedure that every relationship type follows.

MEMA is led by former FCA regulators. Our financial crime, compliance outsourcing and appointed representative and principal firm services cover this work, and you can run the free Company Trust Check on the MEMA website today. Book a free scoping call and we will tell you where your current process is thin.