Yes. You can register a UK company for VAT before it starts trading. HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) recognises businesses that are preparing to trade but have not yet made their first taxable sale. These businesses are commonly described as “intending traders.” A company does not necessarily have to wait

Yes. A new UK limited company can register for VAT immediately, even if it has only just been incorporated and has not yet started trading. VAT registration is not restricted to established businesses or companies that have already reached the VAT threshold. HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) allows eligible businesses

Yes. You can run a UK limited company without being VAT registered, provided the company does not have a VAT registration obligation and you have not chosen to register voluntarily. Incorporating a company with Companies House does not automatically mean you must register for VAT. For most UK-established businesses, compulsory

No. Not every UK limited company needs to register for VAT. Forming a private limited company does not automatically create a VAT registration requirement. In most cases, a company must register when its VAT-taxable turnover exceeds £90,000 in a rolling 12-month period, or when it expects its taxable turnover

If you have a UK limited company that you no longer use, you generally have two choices: keep the company dormant or close it permanently. Neither option is automatically right for every business owner. The better choice depends on whether you expect to use the company again, whether it has

Yes. You can restart trading with a dormant UK company without incorporating a new company, provided the company is still registered and you deal with the relevant Companies House and HMRC requirements. Restarting a dormant company can be useful when you incorporated a business several years ago but never launched

If your UK limited company has been dormant for several years, you do not necessarily need to close it. A dormant company can remain on the Companies House register indefinitely, provided its legal and filing obligations are kept up to date. The important question is what you want to do

Yes. You can generally apply for another UK business bank account after one provider rejects your application. A rejection from one bank does not automatically prevent your company from applying elsewhere. Banks and other account providers have their own eligibility criteria, risk assessments and onboarding procedures, so a decision by

Having a UK limited company does not automatically mean a bank will approve your business bank account application. A bank or payment provider may reject an application after reviewing the company, its directors and owners, proposed activities, expected transactions, location, identity documents and other risk factors. For international founders, the

If your home address is appearing on the Companies House public register, you may be able to have it removed. However, the correct process depends on why your address is there, which document contains it, and whether the address is currently being used for your company. A director’s usual

If your home address is appearing on Companies House, the first thing to establish is which type of address has been published. A UK company director must provide Companies House with a residential address, but a director’s usual residential address is generally kept on a private register rather than

If Companies House is showing incorrect information about your UK company, do not assume the register will correct itself. The Companies House register is the public record of UK companies. It contains information such as a company's registered office, directors, people with significant control (PSCs), SIC codes, filing

Discovering that your UK company has been struck off the Companies House register can be alarming, particularly if you did not know the process was underway. A company can be struck off by Companies House for reasons such as failing to file required documents, failing to maintain an appropriate registered

If your UK company’s registered office or address service has expired, you should not simply ignore it and assume the provider will continue receiving correspondence. An expired address service can create a gap between the address shown on the Companies House register and the address where someone is actually

If your registered office provider has closed, gone out of business, or stopped offering its address service, you should treat the situation as a company compliance issue rather than simply a change of mailing address. Every UK limited company must have an appropriate registered office address at all times. The

If you have lost your Companies House authentication code, you can request a new copy of the code. You do not need to form a new company, and losing the code does not mean that your company record has been lost. The Companies House authentication code is a 6-character alphanumeric

If you have recently incorporated a UK limited company and haven’t received your Company UTR, there is usually no reason to panic. A Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) is a 10-digit number issued by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) when a limited company is set up. It is commonly referred

Usually, a UK company with no revenue will not have Corporation Tax to pay because Corporation Tax is generally charged on taxable profits, not simply on the existence of a company. But “no revenue” does not automatically mean “no Corporation Tax obligations.” A company can have zero sales and still

Yes. A UK limited company generally still has to file annual accounts even if it has never opened a bank account. Having no company bank account does not make a company exempt from Companies House filing obligations. A limited company remains a separate legal entity after incorporation, and its directors

Yes. If you registered a UK limited company but never actually used it, you will generally still need to file annual accounts with Companies House. Simply incorporating a company does not make it exempt from ongoing filing obligations. Even a company that has never traded, earned income, opened a bank

If your UK limited company is showing as active at Companies House even though you have never traded, this does not necessarily mean something has gone wrong. A company can be incorporated, remain registered and appear active on the Companies House register without ever making a sale, providing a service

Yes. In many cases, a mistake on a Companies House filing can be corrected without closing your company or submitting an entirely new incorporation application. The important question is what kind of mistake you made and which filing contains it. A simple typo, an incorrect shareholder detail, a wrong director

Entering the wrong shareholder name when forming a UK company can be unsettling, particularly when the incorrect information appears on the public Companies House register. Whether it is a spelling mistake, a missing middle name, an incorrect surname, or the name of an entirely different person, the appropriate correction depends

Issuing the wrong number of shares when forming a UK limited company is more common than many founders realise. A business owner might intend to create 100 ordinary shares but accidentally issue 1,000, or enter 10,000 shares when they really wanted 100. The good news is that issuing

Choosing a SIC code is one of the less glamorous parts of forming a UK company. You are thinking about your brand, website, customers and bank account, and then Companies House asks you to select a five-digit code describing what the business does. It is easy to pick the closest-looking