How to check a UK company is legitimate before you pay it

The good news: the UK register is free and unusually open

Every UK limited company and LLP must be registered at Companies House, and almost everything it files is public at no charge. The official search is at find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk. Go there directly; skip the lookalike commercial sites that resell the same data.

The ten-minute check, step by step

1. Get the exact legal name and the company number. Ask the supplier for both if the quote or invoice does not show them. A UK company number is 8 characters (for example 01234567; Scottish and Northern Irish companies carry SC or NI prefixes). A legitimate supplier will not mind being asked; the number is public anyway.
2. Search by number, not name. Names can be near-duplicates; the number is unique. Then confirm the registered name matches the name on your quote character for character. "Acme Trading Ltd" and "Acme Trading (UK) Ltd" are two different companies.
3. Check the status. It should say Active. Dissolved, in liquidation, or an active proposal to strike off are each a reason to stop and ask questions before any money moves.
4. Check the incorporation date. A three-month-old company can be perfectly honest, but a supplier claiming "15 years in business" whose company is younger than your enquiry owes you an explanation (a common honest one: a rebrand or restructure, which the filing history will show).
5. Open the filing history. The register flags overdue accounts and overdue confirmation statements. Chronic lateness is a soft flag; a Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off is a hard one.
6. Check the people. The Officers tab lists directors; the "Persons with significant control" tab shows who owns or controls the company. Click a director's name to see their other appointments and any disqualifications.
7. Cross-check what they told you. Registered office versus the address on the quote (a mismatch is often innocent, many firms register at their accountant's address, but it should be explainable). Website footer versus register. VAT number via HMRC's Check a UK VAT number service; note that UK VAT numbers are no longer in the EU's VIES system.

What Companies House cannot tell you

• Whether the person emailing you actually represents that company. The most damaging fraud pattern is a real, clean company whose identity is borrowed by a stranger. The register cannot see your email thread.
• Whether the company can pay or deliver. Filing on time is not solvency. Small-company accounts arrive up to nine months after year end and can be minimal.
• Whose bank account you are paying. No register anywhere publishes bank details, so a register match never confirms a sort code or IBAN. Confirm bank details by phone, on a number you found independently of the email thread.
• Whether every filing is true. Companies House historically accepted most filings on trust; mandatory identity verification for directors only began in late 2025, and older records were never re-vetted.

So treat a clean register result as necessary rather than sufficient. It rules out fake, dissolved, and struck-off companies, and it gives you the official identity to verify everything else against. For the wider checklist, see the 12 red flags before paying a new overseas supplier.

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