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The Department for Business and Trade has published a third progress report confirming key dates, with implementation activity and transitional periods expected to continue well into 2028.
Background
The Department for Business and Trade has published its third progress report on the implementation of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA) outlining key commencement dates and confirming that implementation activity will continue into 2028. It has also separately announced the timing for certain accounting reforms being introduced by the ECCTA.
Once fully in force, the ECCTA will radically transform the role of Companies House and significantly increase the level of transparency in relation to UK entities. It is being implemented in phases, allowing both Companies House and companies time to prepare for the fundamental changes. To date, there have been four significant commencement dates:
- 4 March 2024 : Companies House was given new powers in relation to querying information submitted for filing and companies were required to provide Companies House with a registered email address and an annual ‘lawful purposes’ confirmation;
- 2 May 2024: Companies House was given the power to issue financial penalties for most breaches of the Companies Act 2006, as an alternative to commencing court proceedings;
- 1 September 2025 : the new strict liability corporate offence of failure to prevent fraud came into effect; and
- 18 November 2025 : identity verification (IDV) became mandatory for all new and existing directors and individual persons with significant control (PSCs), subject to a 12-month transition period, and the requirements for companies to maintain certain statutory registers were abolished (register of directors, register of directors’ residential addresses, register of secretaries and PSC register).
The Government had previously published an implementation plan which outlined its programme of works to implement the rest of the changes in the ECCTA.
You can read more about all of the measures in the ECCTA on our blog here.
Latest on timing
The Government says that:
- IDV for those filing – by 1 April 2027 “secondary legislation is expected to … support the introduction of requirements that parties delivering information to Companies House have their identity verified”;
- Limited partnerships – also by 1 April 2027 secondary legislation “is expected to progress limited partnership reform” – the ECCTA contains provisions introducing registration and transparency requirements for limited partnerships; and
- Accounts reforms – from April 2028:
- the requirement for small companies and micro-entities to file profit and loss accounts with Companies House will be implemented (but they will be able to choose to opt out of publishing this information on the public register – Companies House, law enforcement and HMRC will still have access);
- all companies will have to file their annual accounts via commercial software in Inline eXtensible Business Reporting Language (iXBRL) format; and
- the number of times a company can shorten its accounting reference period will be reduced (currently, a company may shorten its accounting reference period without restriction)
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