Daily Compliance Brief — UK Companies House Expands Corporate Transparency Enforcement Powers

February 27, 2026

Signal

Companies House has progressed the rollout of strengthened identity verification and enforcement measures under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act. The updated framework enhances its authority to query, reject, and remove information from the register where filings are suspected to be inaccurate, incomplete, or fraudulent.

The reforms mark a structural shift from a largely passive registry model toward a more supervisory and investigative role in corporate data integrity. The changes are intended to reduce misuse of UK corporate vehicles for illicit finance purposes.

Why it matters

Compliance teams relying on Companies House data for beneficial ownership verification must reassess the reliability, update cadence, and verification status of corporate filings. Enhanced scrutiny of discrepancies between registry data and customer-provided information will be necessary.

Customer due diligence procedures, ongoing monitoring triggers, and escalation frameworks may require adjustment to reflect evolving data quality standards and enforcement practices at the registry level.