UK compliance monitoring
Companies House Confirmation Statement Monitoring: How to Track CS01 Filings After Onboarding
A practical guide to Companies House confirmation statement monitoring after onboarding, including CS01 filings, due dates, overdue flags, identity-verification context, source evidence, and review workflows.
Short answer
Companies House confirmation statement monitoring means tracking CS01 due dates, overdue flags, accepted filings, and filing-history evidence for UK companies you already watch. The goal is not to file the statement for the company. It is to know when the official record shows a compliance deadline, overdue state, or confirmation statement filing that your team should review.
A UK company can pass onboarding with a clean official record, then later miss a confirmation statement deadline, file a CS01 earlier than expected, or file one at a time that creates a new review cycle. For a single company, that is easy to check manually. For a merchant, supplier, borrower, or customer portfolio, it needs monitoring.
This guide focuses on official Companies House data. It does not replace company-secretarial work, legal advice, director identity checks, AML screening, sanctions screening, credit scoring, or manual filing responsibility.
Why confirmation statement monitoring matters after onboarding
Confirmation statements are routine, but they are not irrelevant. They are one of the regular official filings that keeps a UK company's register record current. Companies House says a company must file one even when nothing changed during the review period, and that the statement confirms the company's records are up to date.
The scale of the register makes manual checking a poor control. In its annual report for the year ending 31 March 2025, Companies House reported a UK register size of 5.43 million companies, 14.7 million accepted filings, and a 97.1% confirmation statement filing rate.
That does not mean every late CS01 is a severe risk event. It means the status is official, date-specific, and useful as review context. A good monitoring workflow separates routine recordkeeping from cases that need follow-up.
What is a Companies House confirmation statement?
A confirmation statement is the filing that confirms a company's information on the Companies House register is correct and up to date. The official GOV.UK guidance says a company must review its records and file at least one confirmation statement every 12 months.
The review period ends 12 months after incorporation for a company's first confirmation statement, or 12 months after the confirmation statement date on the last one. GOV.UK says the company can file up to 14 days after the review period has ended.
For monitoring, the important distinction is between the obligation and the alert. Filing the CS01 is the company's responsibility. Monitoring helps your team notice the due date, overdue state, or accepted filing on companies you already care about.
What changed in recent confirmation statement rules?
Confirmation statement monitoring became more useful as a review trigger after recent Companies House reforms. The changes do not turn a monitoring product into a filing agent, but they do make CS01 timing more important for teams that watch UK companies after approval.
Registered email address and lawful purpose
Companies House introduced a registered email address requirement from 4 March 2024. Existing companies provide it when they file their next eligible confirmation statement. Companies also need to confirm that their intended future activities are lawful on the confirmation statement.
A public-register monitor should not claim to expose the private registered email address itself. The useful monitoring layer is the CS01 deadline or accepted filing that prompts your internal process to ask whether the required private fields and statements were handled.
Director identity verification
From 18 November 2025, identity verification became a legal requirement for directors and people with significant control. Companies House guidance says current directors need to provide their personal code in the company's next confirmation statement filing from that date.
Companies House also says it will not accept a company's confirmation statement until all directors have verified their identity. That makes the next CS01 date an important operational deadline during the transition period.
PSCs and separate due periods
PSC identity verification has its own timing rules. GOV.UK says PSCs must verify and provide a Companies House personal code, with a 14-day period that depends on the person's situation. If a person is both a director and PSC, the code may need to be provided separately for each role.
Monitoring a company's confirmation statement does not prove that every individual identity-verification step is complete. It does help identify the company-level filing event that is now tied to the director verification process.
What confirmation statement data can be monitored?
Companies House exposes enough public data to monitor confirmation statement status without scraping browser pages. A practical workflow uses company profile fields for due-date state and filing history for accepted CS01 evidence.
Company profile fields
The Companies House company profile resource includes a confirmation_statement object. The documented fields include last_made_up_to, next_due, next_made_up_to, and overdue.
Those fields are useful because they let a monitor answer concrete questions: when was the last statement made up to, when is the next one due, and is the statement currently overdue?
Filing history
The filing history API exposes a company filing-history list and individual filing history items. Confirmation statement filings can be monitored as accepted filing events with dates, descriptions, transaction references, and source links.
Filing history matters because a due date alone does not show what happened next. A useful monitor should compare the expected state with the accepted filing record.
Filing history stream
Companies House also documents a company filing history stream that returns filing history information such as form type, description, and dates. A stream can reduce repeated polling when it fits the monitoring architecture.
Streaming still needs operational safeguards. You need a cursor, recovery after disconnects, deduplication, and a way to match a national filing event back to companies in your watchlist.
Companies House Follow
For small manual use cases, Companies House has a free Follow feature that sends email alerts when a company files information. Companies House described the service as sending alerts when a filing has been accepted.
Follow is useful for individuals. Portfolio monitoring needs more structure: stable company identifiers, bulk onboarding, source evidence, alert routing, audit history, and integration with the system that owns the customer or supplier relationship.
Which confirmation statement events should trigger review?
The right review rule depends on the relationship. A lender, supplier-risk team, KYB provider, and B2B marketplace may treat the same CS01 event differently. The monitoring layer should keep the source facts clear before anyone decides what to do.
| Event | Why it matters | Useful evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Upcoming due date | A known company is approaching a compliance deadline. | Company number, next due date, next made-up-to date, and profile URL. |
| Overdue confirmation statement | The official profile says the statement is overdue. | Overdue flag, due date, detected date, and source timestamp. |
| Accepted CS01 filing | The company filed a confirmation statement and may have reset the review cycle. | Filing type, filing date, transaction reference, and filing-history URL. |
| Early confirmation statement filing | The company may have chosen a new confirmation statement date. | Previous and new made-up-to dates, filing date, and next due date. |
| CS01 near identity-verification transition dates | The statement may be tied to director personal-code requirements. | Confirmation statement due date plus internal verification status, if your team tracks it. |
What a useful confirmation statement alert should include
A CS01 alert should be understandable before the reviewer opens Companies House. The source link is still essential, but the alert should already explain what changed.
- Company name and Companies House company number
- Current company status
- Signal type, such as due soon, overdue, or filed
- Last confirmation statement made-up-to date
- Next confirmation statement due date
- Next made-up-to date
- Overdue flag from the official profile when available
- Accepted filing date and filing transaction reference
- Source URL or filing-history URL
- Detected date in your monitoring system
- Plain-English review note
The alert should avoid pretending that a CS01 filing proves more than the source shows. It can prove an official due date, overdue state, or accepted filing. It cannot prove, by itself, that the company is low risk or that all internal relationship checks are complete.
Confirmation statement monitoring vs accounts monitoring
Confirmation statements and annual accounts are both routine Companies House obligations, but they answer different review questions. Combining them in one dashboard can be helpful, but the alert logic should keep them separate.
| Question | Confirmation statement | Annual accounts |
|---|---|---|
| Main purpose | Confirm that company register information is current. | File required financial statements or accounts. |
| Useful profile fields | Last made up to, next due, next made up to, overdue. | Next accounts due, period dates, last accounts, overdue. |
| Common review trigger | Overdue CS01 or newly accepted confirmation statement. | Overdue accounts or newly filed accounts. |
| What not to infer | Do not treat filing as a full relationship approval. | Do not invent revenue, profit, or credit metrics from filing presence alone. |
A practical CS01 monitoring workflow
Use this workflow when confirmation statement status is part of your post-approval company review process.
- Resolve each UK company to the correct Companies House company number.
- Store the company number as the monitoring anchor instead of relying on company name alone.
- Fetch company profile fields for confirmation statement due date, made-up-to date, and overdue state.
- Fetch filing history or consume filing-history stream events where that architecture fits.
- Compare the latest source state with the stored baseline.
- Classify events as due soon, overdue, filed, early filed, or unknown confirmation statement change.
- Deduplicate repeated profile reads and filing-history events before creating an alert.
- Attach the official source evidence so the reviewer can verify the change.
- Route only reviewable events to people. Keep routine updates visible in the audit trail without creating unnecessary escalations.
Common mistakes in confirmation statement monitoring
- Confusing monitoring with filing: monitoring shows official dates and accepted filings. It does not submit CS01 forms.
- Using company name as the anchor: company names can change. Use the Companies House company number.
- Over-escalating routine filings: many confirmation statements are normal annual housekeeping.
- Ignoring overdue state: an overdue flag is official profile context and should not be buried in a raw data dump.
- Claiming public visibility into private fields: registered email addresses are not published on the public register.
- Missing identity-verification context: from 18 November 2025, director personal-code requirements are tied to confirmation statement filing.
- Skipping source evidence: every useful alert should link back to the official profile or filing record.
Who needs this monitoring?
Confirmation statement monitoring is most useful for teams that already manage ongoing relationships with UK companies and need source-backed status between periodic reviews.
- KYB and onboarding products adding post-approval monitoring
- Merchant-risk teams watching approved UK merchants
- Lenders and credit platforms monitoring business borrowers
- Supplier-risk and procurement teams watching important UK vendors
- B2B marketplaces monitoring sellers, partners, or service providers
- Legal, accounting, and investor teams tracking portfolio companies
For broader context, read the company filing monitoring guide, the Companies House monitoring guide, and the post-onboarding KYB monitoring guide.
How Churnscan fits
Churnscan monitors official company registry changes after onboarding. For UK companies, the product flow starts with a known company list or API request, resolves companies to official records, creates watches, polls official sources, and returns source-backed signals for review.
Churnscan is not a CS01 filing agent, company-secretarial practice, credit bureau, lender, legal-advice product, AML suite, sanctions tool, or sales-enrichment database. It is a focused monitoring layer for official registry changes affecting companies you already watch.
If confirmation statement status matters to your workflow, treat it as one official-source signal alongside company status changes, filings, director changes, address changes, PSC changes, charges, and insolvency-related updates.
FAQ
What is Companies House confirmation statement monitoring?
Companies House confirmation statement monitoring means tracking CS01-related dates and filings for UK companies after onboarding, then routing due, overdue, newly filed, or early-filed confirmation statement changes into a source-backed review workflow.
What does a confirmation statement confirm?
A confirmation statement confirms that a company's records are up to date and that the information held by Companies House is correct. It must be filed even if nothing changed during the review period.
Can confirmation statement dates be monitored through an API?
Yes. The Companies House company profile resource includes confirmation statement fields such as last made up to, next due, next made up to, and overdue. Filing history can also show accepted confirmation statement filings.
Is confirmation statement monitoring the same as filing a CS01?
No. Monitoring detects official due dates, overdue state, and accepted filings. Filing a CS01 is a company or agent action inside Companies House services and requires the company to confirm its records and required statements.
Should every confirmation statement alert be treated as risk?
No. A confirmation statement alert is a source-backed compliance signal. An overdue statement, unexpected early filing, or missed identity-verification requirement may need review, but the alert is not a risk decision by itself.
Sources
This guide is based on official Companies House and GOV.UK guidance, plus Churnscan's documented product scope.
- GOV.UK confirmation statement filing guidance
- GOV.UK limited company confirmation statement responsibilities
- Companies House company profile resource
- Companies House filing history API reference
- Companies House filing history stream reference
- GOV.UK personal codes for identity verification
- GOV.UK identity verification timing guidance
- Companies House identity verification rollout notice
- Companies House annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025
Monitor Companies House filings after onboarding.
Churnscan helps teams resolve UK companies, create watches, and track source-backed official registry changes after approval.