Late annual accounts cost a private limited company £150 if they arrive not more than a month late, £375 at more than one month but not more than three, £750 at more than three months but not more than six, and £1,500 once they are more than six months overdue (gov.uk). The penalty is automatic — it is triggered by the date you missed, not by anyone weighing up why you missed it. Two details catch directors out. The penalty is doubled where accounts are filed late in two successive financial years, so a repeated £150 slip becomes £300. And an appeal only succeeds where the circumstances are exceptional: relying on your accountant, the company being dormant, financial difficulty and being abroad are all named in the guidance as reasons unlikely to be accepted. The practical order is to file the accounts now, before the band rises, and deal with the penalty second.
The penalty amounts, the doubling rule and the appeal grounds here are set by Companies House and sourced to gov.uk. This is general guidance for directors, not personal or legal advice.
How much is the late filing penalty?
The amount depends on one thing only: how late the accounts were when Companies House actually received them. That is why filing is more urgent than paying — every band you cross while the accounts sit unfiled raises the figure.
This is the scale for a private limited company (gov.uk):
How late the accounts are
Penalty
Not more than 1 month
£150
More than 1 month but not more than 3 months
£375
More than 3 months but not more than 6 months
£750
More than 6 months
£1,500
Read across it and the shape of the problem is clear: accounts three weeks late cost £150, and the same accounts left until the seventh month cost ten times that. Nothing about them changes in between — only the date they land.
It doubles if you're late two years running
Here is the part most articles leave out. Companies House states that "the late filing penalty will be doubled if accounts are filed late in 2 successive financial years", for financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2008 (gov.uk). It is not a separate fine on top; the figure in the table is simply doubled.
So the £150 you shrugged off last year is what makes this year expensive. Two consecutive years of accounts filed inside a month of the deadline is £150 then £300. Two consecutive years left past the six-month mark is £1,500 then £3,000. The doubling follows the pattern of lateness, not the size of the company — a small company that files late twice pays more than a larger one that files late once.
That is why the second year is the one worth defending. Missing a deadline twice is rarely bad luck twice; it is usually the same gap in the process showing up again, and the fix is a filing calendar someone actually owns.
A director who has just taken a first penalty is in the cheapest position they will ever be in — and the calendar that protects it covers Corporation Tax and the confirmation statement too, not just the accounts.
What Companies House will — and won't — accept as an excuse
An appeal "will only be successful if you can show that the circumstances are exceptional" (gov.uk). That word is doing real work. The registrar has very limited discretion to cancel a penalty, and the guidance frames the qualifying situation narrowly: an unforeseen event, close to the filing deadline, that stopped the accounts being delivered. The example Companies House gives is a fire destroying company records shortly before the deadline.
The more useful half of the guidance is what it names as unlikely to succeed, and it is worth being blunt about all four. Relying on your accountant does not work: filing is the director's legal duty, whoever prepares the numbers, which is one reason choosing an accountant is a decision worth making carefully rather than by default. The company being dormant does not work either — dormancy reduces what you file, not whether you file, and dormant accounts fall due on the same clock, as our guide to dormant companies explains. Financial difficulty, including simply not being able to afford the penalty, is not accepted. Nor is a director being abroad when the deadline passed.
Directors read those four and assume they are an opening position to be argued past. They are not. They are the reasons Companies House hears most often and has already decided are not exceptional. If yours is one of them, the honest answer is that an appeal is very unlikely to change anything, and the time is better spent filing the accounts and clearing the balance than drafting a letter.
How to appeal, and what happens if it's rejected
If something genuinely exceptional stopped you filing, there is a route — and it has three stages. What it does not have is a guaranteed outcome, and no one can promise you one.
Appeal to Companies House. Set out what happened, when it happened relative to the filing deadline, and why it prevented delivery of the accounts. Documentary evidence of the event carries the argument; an explanation on its own rarely does.
Escalate to the Senior Casework Unit. If the first appeal is rejected, this is the internal review stage (gov.uk).
Ask the Independent Adjudicators to review it. They examine how your case was handled — but note the limit Companies House states plainly: the registrar's decision cannot be overridden.
Absorb that before you invest weeks in the process: the adjudicators can review how a complaint was handled, but they cannot cancel a penalty the registrar has decided stands. An appeal is worth making when you have an exceptional, evidenced event — it is not a negotiation over the amount.
If the real reason the accounts were late is that no one was on top of the deadline, the answer is a filing routine rather than an appeal letter. We can match you with a partner accountant who handles Companies House deadlines every week.
Deal with the accounts first. The penalty band is fixed by the date Companies House receives them, so every week the accounts stay unfiled risks moving you into a higher band — and the appeal process does not pause that clock.
The notice itself carries the amount due and the reference to quote, and Companies House sets out the ways to pay in its late filing penalties guidance (gov.uk). Quote that reference: a payment sent without it is harder to match to your company, which is how a penalty you believe is settled keeps generating reminders. Paying does not remove the obligation to file, and filing does not remove the penalty; they are two separate jobs and both have to be finished.
One thing not to assume is that an appeal in progress lets you leave the amount outstanding. The registrar's discretion is very limited, so treat the penalty as payable unless you are told otherwise.
The deadlines, so it doesn't happen again
It is easy to track one date when there are actually four. The accounts deadline is the one that carries the automatic scale, but it sits alongside three others that run on different clocks — and not all from the same starting point.
Filing or payment
Deadline
Annual accounts to Companies House
9 months after your financial year end
A first set of accounts after incorporation
21 months after incorporation
Company Tax Return (CT600) to HMRC
12 months after the end of your accounting period
Corporation Tax paid to HMRC
9 months and 1 day after the end of your accounting period
Note the trap in the bottom two rows: Corporation Tax is paid before the return that calculates it is due (gov.uk). And a first-year company gets 21 months from incorporation rather than 9 months from a year end (gov.uk) — a longer runway that is easy to misread as "no rush". We cover how the two filings fit together in our guide to limited company accounts and tax returns, and the payment side in Corporation Tax for directors.
A late confirmation statement is a different thing
The £150 to £1,500 scale applies to annual accounts only — a late confirmation statement works completely differently, and there is no automatic fixed penalty for one. Companies House issues a penalty warning notice giving you at least 28 days, and if you take the required action within 28 days beginning the day after the date on that notice, no penalty is issued at all (gov.uk). Only if the matter escalates beyond that does Companies House impose a discretionary financial penalty under section 1132A of the Companies Act 2006. So if the notice on your desk concerns your confirmation statement rather than your accounts, you are looking at a deadline rather than a bill — we walk through that process in what happens when a confirmation statement is overdue.
Two filings, two regimes, two very different consequences — and knowing which one has landed on you changes what you do next. Our free guide sets out the director's filing year in one place, with the dates that trigger each of them.
If you would rather hand the whole cycle to someone who does it daily, our accountancy overview explains how we match directors with a partner accountant to prepare and file accounts on time.
Frequently asked questions
How much is the late filing penalty from Companies House?
For a private limited company: £150 if the accounts are not more than a month late, £375 at more than one month but not more than three, £750 at more than three but not more than six, and £1,500 once they are more than six months overdue. The band is set by the date Companies House receives the accounts.
Does the penalty double if I file late twice?
Yes. Companies House doubles the late filing penalty where accounts are filed late in two successive financial years, for financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2008. A repeated £150 penalty becomes £300, and a repeated £1,500 penalty becomes £3,000.
Can I appeal a Companies House late filing penalty?
You can appeal, but it will only succeed if you can show the circumstances were exceptional — typically an unforeseen event close to the filing deadline that prevented delivery of the accounts. The registrar has very limited discretion, and Companies House names relying on your accountant, the company being dormant, financial difficulty and a director being abroad as reasons unlikely to succeed.
What happens if my appeal is rejected?
You can escalate to the Senior Casework Unit and then ask the Independent Adjudicators to review the case. The guidance is explicit that the registrar's decision cannot be overridden, so the review examines how your case was handled rather than replacing the decision.
Is there a penalty for a late confirmation statement too?
Not an automatic one — the £150 to £1,500 scale applies to accounts. Companies House issues a penalty warning notice giving at least 28 days, and taking the required action within 28 days beginning the day after the notice date means no penalty is issued. A discretionary penalty under section 1132A of the Companies Act 2006 only applies if the matter escalates.
Late annual accounts cost a private limited company £150 if they arrive not more than a month late, £375 at more than one month but not more than three, £750 at more than three months but not more than six, and £1,500 once they are more than six months overdue (gov.uk). The penalty is automatic — it is triggered by the date you missed, not by anyone weighing up why you missed it. Two details catch directors out. The penalty is doubled where accounts are filed late in two successive financial years, so a repeated £150 slip becomes £300. And an appeal only succeeds where the circumstances are exceptional: relying on your accountant, the company being dormant, financial difficulty and being abroad are all named in the guidance as reasons unlikely to be accepted. The practical order is to file the accounts now, before the band rises, and deal with the penalty second.
The penalty amounts, the doubling rule and the appeal grounds here are set by Companies House and sourced to gov.uk. This is general guidance for directors, not personal or legal advice.
How much is the late filing penalty?
The amount depends on one thing only: how late the accounts were when Companies House actually received them. That is why filing is more urgent than paying — every band you cross while the accounts sit unfiled raises the figure.
This is the scale for a private limited company (gov.uk):
How late the accounts are
Penalty
Not more than 1 month
£150
More than 1 month but not more than 3 months
£375
More than 3 months but not more than 6 months
£750
More than 6 months
£1,500
Read across it and the shape of the problem is clear: accounts three weeks late cost £150, and the same accounts left until the seventh month cost ten times that. Nothing about them changes in between — only the date they land.
It doubles if you're late two years running
Here is the part most articles leave out. Companies House states that "the late filing penalty will be doubled if accounts are filed late in 2 successive financial years", for financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2008 (gov.uk). It is not a separate fine on top; the figure in the table is simply doubled.
So the £150 you shrugged off last year is what makes this year expensive. Two consecutive years of accounts filed inside a month of the deadline is £150 then £300. Two consecutive years left past the six-month mark is £1,500 then £3,000. The doubling follows the pattern of lateness, not the size of the company — a small company that files late twice pays more than a larger one that files late once.
That is why the second year is the one worth defending. Missing a deadline twice is rarely bad luck twice; it is usually the same gap in the process showing up again, and the fix is a filing calendar someone actually owns.
A director who has just taken a first penalty is in the cheapest position they will ever be in — and the calendar that protects it covers Corporation Tax and the confirmation statement too, not just the accounts.
What Companies House will — and won't — accept as an excuse
An appeal "will only be successful if you can show that the circumstances are exceptional" (gov.uk). That word is doing real work. The registrar has very limited discretion to cancel a penalty, and the guidance frames the qualifying situation narrowly: an unforeseen event, close to the filing deadline, that stopped the accounts being delivered. The example Companies House gives is a fire destroying company records shortly before the deadline.
The more useful half of the guidance is what it names as unlikely to succeed, and it is worth being blunt about all four. Relying on your accountant does not work: filing is the director's legal duty, whoever prepares the numbers, which is one reason choosing an accountant is a decision worth making carefully rather than by default. The company being dormant does not work either — dormancy reduces what you file, not whether you file, and dormant accounts fall due on the same clock, as our guide to dormant companies explains. Financial difficulty, including simply not being able to afford the penalty, is not accepted. Nor is a director being abroad when the deadline passed.
Directors read those four and assume they are an opening position to be argued past. They are not. They are the reasons Companies House hears most often and has already decided are not exceptional. If yours is one of them, the honest answer is that an appeal is very unlikely to change anything, and the time is better spent filing the accounts and clearing the balance than drafting a letter.
How to appeal, and what happens if it's rejected
If something genuinely exceptional stopped you filing, there is a route — and it has three stages. What it does not have is a guaranteed outcome, and no one can promise you one.
Appeal to Companies House. Set out what happened, when it happened relative to the filing deadline, and why it prevented delivery of the accounts. Documentary evidence of the event carries the argument; an explanation on its own rarely does.
Escalate to the Senior Casework Unit. If the first appeal is rejected, this is the internal review stage (gov.uk).
Ask the Independent Adjudicators to review it. They examine how your case was handled — but note the limit Companies House states plainly: the registrar's decision cannot be overridden.
Absorb that before you invest weeks in the process: the adjudicators can review how a complaint was handled, but they cannot cancel a penalty the registrar has decided stands. An appeal is worth making when you have an exceptional, evidenced event — it is not a negotiation over the amount.
If the real reason the accounts were late is that no one was on top of the deadline, the answer is a filing routine rather than an appeal letter. We can match you with a partner accountant who handles Companies House deadlines every week.
Deal with the accounts first. The penalty band is fixed by the date Companies House receives them, so every week the accounts stay unfiled risks moving you into a higher band — and the appeal process does not pause that clock.
The notice itself carries the amount due and the reference to quote, and Companies House sets out the ways to pay in its late filing penalties guidance (gov.uk). Quote that reference: a payment sent without it is harder to match to your company, which is how a penalty you believe is settled keeps generating reminders. Paying does not remove the obligation to file, and filing does not remove the penalty; they are two separate jobs and both have to be finished.
One thing not to assume is that an appeal in progress lets you leave the amount outstanding. The registrar's discretion is very limited, so treat the penalty as payable unless you are told otherwise.
The deadlines, so it doesn't happen again
It is easy to track one date when there are actually four. The accounts deadline is the one that carries the automatic scale, but it sits alongside three others that run on different clocks — and not all from the same starting point.
Filing or payment
Deadline
Annual accounts to Companies House
9 months after your financial year end
A first set of accounts after incorporation
21 months after incorporation
Company Tax Return (CT600) to HMRC
12 months after the end of your accounting period
Corporation Tax paid to HMRC
9 months and 1 day after the end of your accounting period
Note the trap in the bottom two rows: Corporation Tax is paid before the return that calculates it is due (gov.uk). And a first-year company gets 21 months from incorporation rather than 9 months from a year end (gov.uk) — a longer runway that is easy to misread as "no rush". We cover how the two filings fit together in our guide to limited company accounts and tax returns, and the payment side in Corporation Tax for directors.
A late confirmation statement is a different thing
The £150 to £1,500 scale applies to annual accounts only — a late confirmation statement works completely differently, and there is no automatic fixed penalty for one. Companies House issues a penalty warning notice giving you at least 28 days, and if you take the required action within 28 days beginning the day after the date on that notice, no penalty is issued at all (gov.uk). Only if the matter escalates beyond that does Companies House impose a discretionary financial penalty under section 1132A of the Companies Act 2006. So if the notice on your desk concerns your confirmation statement rather than your accounts, you are looking at a deadline rather than a bill — we walk through that process in what happens when a confirmation statement is overdue.
Two filings, two regimes, two very different consequences — and knowing which one has landed on you changes what you do next. Our free guide sets out the director's filing year in one place, with the dates that trigger each of them.
If you would rather hand the whole cycle to someone who does it daily, our accountancy overview explains how we match directors with a partner accountant to prepare and file accounts on time.
Frequently asked questions
How much is the late filing penalty from Companies House?
For a private limited company: £150 if the accounts are not more than a month late, £375 at more than one month but not more than three, £750 at more than three but not more than six, and £1,500 once they are more than six months overdue. The band is set by the date Companies House receives the accounts.
Does the penalty double if I file late twice?
Yes. Companies House doubles the late filing penalty where accounts are filed late in two successive financial years, for financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2008. A repeated £150 penalty becomes £300, and a repeated £1,500 penalty becomes £3,000.
Can I appeal a Companies House late filing penalty?
You can appeal, but it will only succeed if you can show the circumstances were exceptional — typically an unforeseen event close to the filing deadline that prevented delivery of the accounts. The registrar has very limited discretion, and Companies House names relying on your accountant, the company being dormant, financial difficulty and a director being abroad as reasons unlikely to succeed.
What happens if my appeal is rejected?
You can escalate to the Senior Casework Unit and then ask the Independent Adjudicators to review the case. The guidance is explicit that the registrar's decision cannot be overridden, so the review examines how your case was handled rather than replacing the decision.
Is there a penalty for a late confirmation statement too?
Not an automatic one — the £150 to £1,500 scale applies to accounts. Companies House issues a penalty warning notice giving at least 28 days, and taking the required action within 28 days beginning the day after the notice date means no penalty is issued. A discretionary penalty under section 1132A of the Companies Act 2006 only applies if the matter escalates.
