Just Incorporated? The 30-Day Checklist Every UK Founder Needs

Incorporating a UK limited company takes about twelve minutes and costs £50. You fill in a few forms on the Companies House website, pick a company name, pay the fee, and within a day — sometimes within hours — you receive your certificate of incorporation. Done. You are now a company director.

Except you are not done. Not even close. That certificate is a starting gun, not a finish line, and the next 30 days will determine whether your company runs smoothly for years to come or slowly accumulates the kind of compliance debt that costs real money to untangle later. Most founders discover this the hard way: a bank that won't open an account because the PSC register is incomplete, a Companies House letter that never arrives because the registered office is still set to a home address nobody checks, or a £100 HMRC penalty for registering for Corporation Tax a week too late.

This is the checklist we wish someone had handed us on day one. Every item has a deadline, a reason, and a link to the help you need if you would rather not do it alone.

Week one: the essentials that can't wait

Some of these tasks have hard legal deadlines. Others have practical deadlines — things that will quietly block you from opening a bank account, signing a lease, or onboarding your first client. Treat the first week as the foundation. Get these right and everything else falls into place.

1. Verify your identity with Companies House

Since 18 November 2025, every director and person with significant control (PSC) must verify their identity with Companies House. This is not optional — it is a legal requirement under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCTA). If you incorporated after that date, you will have been prompted to verify during incorporation. But if you added a co-founder as a director or PSC after the fact, they need to verify separately.

There are two routes: verifying directly through GOV.UK One Login (free, requires a valid UK passport or driving licence and a smartphone) or using an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP) like Filing HQ. The ACSP route is particularly useful if you hold a non-UK passport, do not have a smartphone compatible with the GOV.UK app, or simply want someone else to handle it.

2. Set up a proper registered office address

Your registered office is not just an address on a form. It is where all official correspondence from Companies House and HMRC is sent — deadline reminders, penalty notices, strike-off warnings, and legal notices. It is also publicly visible on the Companies House register, which means anyone can look it up.

If you used your home address at incorporation, you now have your personal address permanently on the public record (even if you change it later, the historical filing remains visible). More practically, if you move house and forget to update the registered office, you will miss critical post. We see this cause real damage every single week.

A dedicated registered office address solves both problems: it keeps your home address private, it provides a stable London address that does not change when you move, and services like Filing HQ scan and forward every letter digitally on the day it arrives.

3. Confirm your PSC register is correct

Every UK company must maintain a PSC register — a record of anyone who holds more than 25% of the company's shares or voting rights, or who otherwise exercises significant control. For most startups, the founder is the sole PSC. But if you have a co-founder, an early investor, or a family member holding shares, each of them may qualify.

Getting this wrong has consequences. Banks routinely check PSC information when opening business accounts. If your register does not match what Companies House shows, expect delays or outright rejection. And under ECCTA, every PSC now needs to complete identity verification — the same requirement as directors.

Week two: shares, HMRC, and your first real paperwork

4. Issue your initial shares properly

When you incorporate, you declare how many shares the company will have and who holds them. But the legal formalities do not end there. You need to ensure that share certificates are issued to each shareholder, that the statutory register of members is up to date, and that the share capital is actually paid up (even if the total value is just £1).

If you plan to bring on a co-founder or early team member with equity, you will need to issue new shares — which means a board resolution, updated filings with Companies House (form SH01), and proper share certificates. Getting this right from day one avoids painful and expensive corrections later, especially if you are raising investment and need to show a clean cap table.

5. Register for Corporation Tax with HMRC

This is the one with the hard deadline. You must register your company for Corporation Tax within three months of starting any business activity — and "business activity" is interpreted broadly. Buying a domain name, signing a contract, invoicing a client, or even opening a bank account can count. HMRC's view is that if you are doing anything in the company's name, the clock has started.

Registration is done online through the HMRC website. You will need your company's UTR (Unique Taxpayer Reference), which HMRC usually posts to your registered office within two weeks of incorporation. If that letter goes to the wrong address — see point 2 — you will not have the UTR, and you cannot register, and the three-month clock keeps ticking regardless.

6. Open a business bank account

Do not use your personal account for business transactions. Beyond the practical mess it creates for bookkeeping, it can weaken your limited liability protection — the legal separation between you and the company is harder to argue if the money was never separated in the first place.

Most UK banks and fintech providers (Starling, Tide, Monzo Business, Revolut Business) will need your certificate of incorporation, memorandum and articles of association, proof of the registered office address, and details of all directors and PSCs. If your Companies House record is incomplete or inconsistent — wrong SIC codes, unverified directors, missing PSC details — expect the application to stall.

Month one: building the compliance rhythm

7. Choose your SIC codes carefully

Your SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) codes tell Companies House, HMRC, and anyone checking your public record what your company actually does. You chose them at incorporation, probably in a rush, and there is a decent chance they do not accurately describe your business — especially if you have pivoted since then or picked the first code that looked vaguely right.

Wrong SIC codes are not immediately dangerous, but they can trigger unexpected consequences. Some codes attract additional regulatory requirements. Others affect the insurance quotes you receive. And if your SIC code says "retail sale of food" but you are actually a software consultancy, your bank's compliance team will have questions.

8. Set up basic bookkeeping from day one

Your company's first accounting period starts on the date of incorporation and typically runs for 12 months. At the end of that period, you will need to file annual accounts with Companies House and a Corporation Tax return with HMRC. If you have not kept records from the start, you — or your accountant — will spend hours reconstructing transactions from bank statements and email receipts.

You do not need expensive software on day one. A simple spreadsheet tracking income, expenses, and receipts is enough for most new companies. But you do need to start from the very first transaction, including that £50 incorporation fee (which is an allowable business expense, incidentally).

9. Understand your upcoming filing deadlines

As a new company director, you now have a recurring calendar of obligations:

• Confirmation statement — due every 12 months, with a 14-day grace period. The fee is £50 online. Miss it and Companies House will begin the process of striking your company off the register. Filing HQ handles this for you — including the fee.
• Annual accounts — due within 9 months of your accounting reference date (usually the end of the month in which you incorporated). Late filing triggers automatic penalties starting at £150.
• Corporation Tax return (CT600) — due within 12 months of the end of your accounting period. Corporation Tax itself must be paid within 9 months and 1 day.
• Event-driven filings — changes to directors, registered office, PSCs, or share structure must be filed with Companies House as they happen, not batched up for the confirmation statement.

10. Consider whether you need to register for VAT

VAT registration is mandatory once your taxable turnover exceeds £90,000 in any rolling 12-month period. But you can also register voluntarily below that threshold, which lets you reclaim VAT on business purchases. Whether voluntary registration makes sense depends on your clients (B2B clients generally do not mind VAT on invoices), your costs (high upfront spend means more VAT to reclaim), and your appetite for the quarterly admin.

The mistakes that cost the most to fix later

We work with hundreds of UK founders every year, and the same patterns repeat. The issues that cause the most damage are never dramatic — they are small oversights that compound over time:

1. Using a home address as the registered office and then moving house. Every piece of official post — HMRC, Companies House, courts — goes to the old address. The new tenant bins it. The founder does not find out until a penalty arrives or a strike-off notice is published.
2. Not verifying identity promptly. Under ECCTA, unverified directors face restrictions on what they can file. Delay this and you may find yourself unable to update your own company's records when you need to most urgently.
3. Issuing shares informally. A verbal promise of equity to a co-founder is not a share issue. Without proper board minutes, SH01 filings, and share certificates, there is no legal record — and when it matters (investment round, dispute, exit), the ambiguity is expensive to resolve.
4. Ignoring the confirmation statement because "nothing changed." The filing is required even if every detail is identical to last year. "Nothing changed" is itself a confirmation that needs to be formally submitted and paid for.
5. Not separating personal and business finances. It makes tax returns harder, weakens limited liability, and looks unprofessional when clients or investors ask for a business bank reference.

The simpler way to get it all right

None of this is individually difficult. The problem is that it is a lot of small things, spread across different systems, with different deadlines, and you are trying to do them while simultaneously building a product, finding customers, and keeping the lights on. That is exactly the gap Filing HQ is built to fill.

Our packages bundle the registered office address, confirmation statement filing, identity verification support, and PSC compliance into a single, predictable annual cost. You handle the business. We handle Companies House. When something is due, we tell you. When something needs filing, we prepare it. When a deadline is approaching, we chase it — not you.