Credit Where It Is Due: A Mixed Picture of Identity Verification Roll-Out
The government’s own data highlights that certain aspects of the identity verification roll-out have been executed effectively. According to official statistics, nine in ten individuals who completed the check found it straightforward, underscoring a generally user-friendly experience. The average completion time via the GOV.UK app is impressively swift, clocking in at under two and a half minutes. Additionally, the digital service has demonstrated remarkable reliability, maintaining availability 99.6% of the time and surpassing its own performance targets (GOV.UK).
What Has Been Challenging
Despite the ease reported by users, the overall completion rate paints a more complex picture. By late June 2026, only about 36% of people with significant control (PSC) had completed verification, with nearly 1.5 million overdue on their obligations (AccountingWEB). This disparity is largely due to the government’s application of uniform compliance rules that do not differentiate between business sizes. Such blanket policies have inadvertently complicated the identity verification process for micro-business owners.
Approximately 948,000 one-person limited companies fall under the scope of the new identity verification rules (GOV.UK). Legally, a sole director-owner is classified as two distinct individuals—a director and a person with significant control—each requiring separate identity verifications with different deadlines. Crucially, there is no prompt or guidance indicating that a second submission is necessary, which has led to confusion and missed deadlines.
Joshua Finn CA, founder of BK Plus Barnet and a registered ACSP, highlighted in a written interview that “many did not realise a second submission was required” (FOUNDRS report). He further noted that while the identity verification itself was manageable, the bigger challenge lay in tracking and managing the multiple deadlines. Finn argues that “multiple deadlines for the same person should never have been the design,” as it fails to reflect the practical realities of how business owners interact with Companies House.
Why We Need to Learn Fast
Identity verification represents just the first wave of upcoming regulatory reforms. Among these, the introduction of software-only accounts filing scheduled for April 2028 is expected to be particularly disruptive. This change will end the free web and paper filing routes for some micro-businesses, potentially complicating compliance further.
The critical lesson for policymakers is clear: applying a one-size-fits-all compliance rule across businesses of vastly different scales results in uneven impacts. These impacts disproportionately burden the smallest enterprises, which often lack the resources to absorb added complexity and administrative overhead.
To foster economic growth, the government must tailor its policies to incentivise business owners effectively. Regulations should be designed to be straightforward and easy to navigate, rather than confusing or overwhelming those striving to grow their companies.
In this context, Joshua Finn suggested that a more detailed, step-by-step briefing on the identity verification process would have been beneficial. He criticized the Companies House webinars for offering only high-level overviews that failed to prepare businesses for the practical realities of compliance.
At FOUNDRS, we see an opportunity to reimagine how solo-founders manage their businesses through private sector innovation. Solo-founders need integrated support that provides a coherent view of all compliance obligations, rather than a fragmented array of deadlines managed by disparate service providers and systems. Achieving this would not only streamline government regulation roll-outs but also help solo-founders contextualize their responsibilities within a single, clear framework.
Key Takeaways
- Since November 2025, six to seven million company directors and people with significant control have been subject to new identity verification requirements imposed by Companies House.
- As of late June 2026, only around 36% of people with significant control had completed verification, with nearly 1.5 million overdue—indicating the process is too complex for many micro-businesses.
- Approximately 948,000 one-person limited companies are affected by the rules, yet the same uniform requirements apply to them as to large corporations.
- Identity verification is just the initial phase of a series of reforms; software-only accounts filing is next, making it urgent that the government learns from current challenges.
- Callum Sommerton advocates for tiered compliance policies based on business size, proposing simpler routes for solo founders and micro-businesses to encourage economic growth rather than create barriers.
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