Unique identifiers (UID) – Companies House Identity Verification
What is IDV? Under ECCTA (The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023), Companies House is introducing a new identity verification (IDV) system to help prevent economic crime. Anyone setting up, running, owning or controlling a legal entity in the UK must verify their identity to prove they are who they claim to be.
This means that for new entities, all directors, LLP members and people with significant control (PSCs) must complete identity verification.
For existing entities, all directors, LLP members and PSCs will have a transition period to verify their identity with Companies House.
From 8 April 2025, individuals have been able to verify their identity and obtain a Personal Code (or ‘UID’) from Companies House. This is ‘Step 1’ of the IDV process. This code will then be needed from 18 November 2025 for ‘Step 2’ i.e. submitting the code to Companies House for each director, PSC or LLP member role held by that individual.
Individuals can verify:
- directly with Companies House via GOV.UK OneLogin, or
- through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP).
For more information on IDV (including how to obtain a UID), see Companies House guidance here.
However it is done, Companies House will email the Personal Code/UID to the individual who has gone through IDV. Each individual must have a unique email address for this. So, if you are an ACSP completing IDV for all your client stakeholders, you cannot have their UIDs sent to a single email address – which could be irritating, to put it mildly!
What is a UID? This is an 11-character Unique ID code generated by Companies House for each individual that completes IDV. Companies House refers to this as the Personal Code.
The UID can be obtained by individuals (i) completing IDV directly with Companies House via OneLogin; or (ii) using an ACSP to complete IDV for them.
For security reasons, regardless of which method is used Companies House will email the UID directly to the individual. So if you use an ACSP to obtain your UID, the UID will still be emailed to you for future filings – it is then your responsibility to pass this to your ACSP if you need them to file this at Companies House for you (see below!).
Can I use Kudocs to complete IDV? No – this is not a service that Kudocs can provide. However, the process is relatively easy to do. See Companies House guidance here.
Can I store a UID in Kudocs? You can store UIDs in Kudocs as part of a stakeholder profile ahead of any necessary submissions to Companies House. As an individual will have only 1 UID, where that individual has multiple roles in one company (e.g. a director and PSC) or multiple roles across multiple entities (e.g. they are a director of 20 companies and a member of 5 LLPs) the UID will be the same in all roles/ entities. You just need to add the UID to Kudocs to connect them all together (and then Companies House should connect them together in their records once all the UIDs have been filed.
How do I add a UID to Kudocs? There are a number of ways to do this?
1. Via the UID panel on the entity dashboard. Open the panel to see who is missing their UID. Click on the red ID card icon and you’ll be able to add the UID.
2. Via the Edit stakeholder page. Just like when you edit a stakeholder name, address, etc, you can add/ edit the UID via this button. Note you cannot edit the UID once it has been successfully filed at CH. For stakeholders where you have other missing mandatory information (e.g. elements of an address are missing) the Kudocs system validation is designed to spot this and require you to add any missing information at the same time as adding the UID. If you do not want to do this (e.g. because you don’t know it, or it will trigger a filing to Companies House that you do not want), use option 1 or 2.
3. For portfolio customers Kudocs can help you bulk apply the UID for a single stakeholder across multiple roles and entities – using the Portfolio Stakeholder search tool. Just search for the stakeholder, select all the stakeholder you want to update, click on {Update Unique ID} and follow the instructions. Kudocs will then save that UID for all the selected stakeholders – saving you masses of time!
Will Kudocs use UIDs for future submissions to Companies House? Yes. Kudocs has made several background changes ahead of the 18 November 2025 implementation date – see our other FAQ here for more. In short, most UIDs will be submitted automatically as part of the relevant filing. Companies House has a special regime in place for submitting existing PSC UIDs, but Kudocs also give you the option to automate this – see here for more!
If a UID is missing for a submission, Kudocs will flag this to you so you can resolve the issue.
When and how the UIDs are to be submitted to Companies House is a bit complex. Kudocs has worked it out for you, so you can just rely on the warnings on each company dashboard. If you want to understand these deadlines in more detail, see our other FAQ here.
Last updated: 26/11/2025 by Kudocs Admin