Companies House has announced that a number of its statutory fees will increase from 1 February 2026, including those for key annual submissions. 

What’s changing?

From 1 February 2026, Companies House will alter fees across a wide range of transactions as part of its annual review, apparently to ensure charges cover the cost of delivering and modernising its services. For small and owner-managed businesses, the most relevant changes are the fees for digital company incorporation, annual Confirmation Statements and voluntary strike-off applications.

Companies House has said the additional income will help fund new responsibilities under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, including enhanced checks, more robust data cleansing and expanded investigation and enforcement work. The agency also states that, despite the latest increases, UK company registration fees remain relatively low by international standards and continue to operate on a cost-recovery (non profit-making) basis.

Key fee changes for common filings

For most routine filings, the new fee structure is as follows:

• Digital Company incorporation filing fee: increases from £50 to £100.
• Digital Confirmation Statement filing fee: increases from £34 to £50.
• Digital Voluntary strike-off filing fee: decreases from £33 to £13.

For completeness, paper filing fees are also changing, with paper incorporations rising to £124 and paper Confirmation Statements to £110, while the paper voluntary strike-off fee will fall to £18. However, given the substantially higher cost of paper filings and the increased security risk, businesses are strongly encouraged to continue using digital routes wherever possible. We register all client companies for PROOF automatically to ensure they benefit from the security it provides, which precludes paper filing in the majority of cases, further enforcing the digital option.

Practical impact for your business

These changes effectively double the cost of incorporating a new company and increase the digital confirmation statement fee, so new incorporations and annual compliance budgets need to be reviewed for the 2026–27 year. 

If anyone is planning multiple incorporations (for example, group reorganisations, SPVs or property companies), there may be an advantage in completing these before 1 February 2026 to benefit from the lower £50 incorporation fee.

Conversely, if you’re considering closing dormant or non-core companies, it may be more cost-effective to delay voluntary digital strike-off applications until on or after 1 February 2026, when the fee falls from £33 to £13 per company. 

As always, any decision to strike a company off should be aligned with tax, legal and commercial considerations, not driven solely by filing costs, so please ensure you seek specific advice for your circumstances before proceeding.

It’s not possible to submit a Confirmation Statement before the due date, so there’s no way to avoid the increased filing fee.

How we can help

Ahead of these changes, it’s sensible to:

• Review your group structure and identify companies that may be suitable for strike-off or other restructuring.
• Check that you’ve included the higher confirmation statement fee in budgets and cash-flow forecasts from February 2026 onwards.
• Plan the timing of any upcoming incorporations or company closures to minimise unnecessary costs while remaining compliant.

As usual, we’ll submit the annual Confirmation Statement for clients at the due date and add the appropriate fee to their next invoice. 

If you’d like to discuss how the new Companies House fees affect your existing companies, planned incorporations or exit and restructuring plans, please get in touch.