Companies House update to accounts filing from April 2028

The government announced an update today on how accounts reform measures set out in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA 2023) will be implemented.  

Under ECCTA 2023, the government is reforming how companies report information and what information they report when filing their annual accounts with Companies House. The accounts reforms seek to improve the transparency, accuracy and reliability of data on the companies register to: 

ensure that business can rely on robust information when making decisions 

modernise practices in line with other countries 

Following the recommendations of the Small Business Regulatory Taskforce, the government has decided to pause implementing the requirement for small companies and micro-entities to file profit and loss accounts with Companies House from April 2028. 

During this pause, the government will explore options for streamlining Companies House and HMRC filing processes, under the ‘tell Government once’ ambition. We remain committed to delivering our economic crime objectives in a way that is in keeping with our wider ambitions to reduce business burdens and improve filing processes. 

In practical terms, this means the government will continue to allow companies to file abridged accounts and retain the option for smaller companies to remove, or ‘fillet’, their profit and loss information from the accounts filed at Companies House after 1 April 2028. 

All companies to file accounts using commercial software 

Software filing will improve the quality of financial data for register users and provide more opportunities over time for companies’ accounts data to be aggregated, compared and analysed for use more widely. 

As announced earlier this year, from April 2028, we will require all UK registered companies to file their accounts in Inline eXtensible Business Reporting Language (iXBRL) format using commercial software. This requirement is going ahead as planned.