Every director of an existing UK limited company has until 17 November 2026 to verify their identity with Companies House — and as of the end of June 2026, government figures show only 55% of directors, 50% of LLP members and 42% of people with significant control (PSCs) had done it. If you run your OnlyFans, Fansly or Fanvue income through a limited company, that includes you.
Why it matters to creators
A lot of creators incorporate specifically to get a business bank account, look credible to a mortgage lender or landlord, or ring-fence liability once the income gets serious — exactly the move NudeNewz covered back in August. The catch is that becoming a director comes with a personal legal duty that has nothing to do with content or platforms: under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA), acting as a director without verifying your identity is itself an offence. Miss the deadline and Companies House can block your company’s filings, flag your record publicly, fine you, or move toward disqualification and striking the company off — which would also take your business bank account and trading history with it.
What Companies House actually requires
The identity-check regime isn’t new — it became compulsory for new companies and newly appointed directors or PSCs back on 18 November 2025. What’s landing now is the end of the one-year transition window for everyone who was already a director, LLP member or PSC before that date. That covers the vast majority of creators who set up a limited company before last autumn.
There are two ways to do it. The free route is through GOV.UK One Login: you sign in (or create an account), scan a biometric passport, UK driving licence, biometric residence permit or frontier worker permit, confirm your current address, and you’re issued a personal verification code — most people can finish it in one sitting. The alternative is to go through an accountant or company formation agent who is registered with Companies House as an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP); they verify you as part of their existing AML checks, which is often the simpler option if you already pay someone to file your accounts.
Directors are expected to supply their code the next time the company files a confirmation statement. PSCs — anyone who owns more than 25% of the shares or voting rights, or who otherwise controls the company, which for most solo creator businesses means the creator themselves — work to a shorter window once Companies House contacts them, so it’s worth checking your listing on the Companies House register now rather than waiting for a letter.
What happens if you miss it
Companies House has been explicit that it will move from “supportive” to “enforcement” mode once the transition period closes, according to analysis published in August by corporate governance firm Law Debenture. In practice that means: confirmation statements and other filings can be rejected if your identity isn’t verified, which stops the clock on everything from registering a change of address to appointing a new director; the register will mark your company as non-compliant, which is visible to anyone who looks you up, including banks and payment processors already nervous about adult-content merchants; and in more serious or repeated cases, you risk prosecution, disqualification as a director, or the company being struck off altogether. None of that is an abstract risk — with PSC verification sitting at just 42% as of the last official count, a meaningful share of micro-businesses are heading into November unverified.
Why this lands differently if your “business” is you
For a lot of industries, identity verification is a back-office task someone else handles. For a solo OnlyFans or Fansly creator who incorporated, you’re usually the director, the PSC and the entire workforce in one person — so this isn’t paperwork to delegate, it’s something only you can complete. It also arrives in the same few weeks as HMRC’s 5 October registration deadline for new self-assessment taxpayers, which makes early October to mid-November a genuinely busy compliance stretch for anyone running fan-platform income as a proper business in the UK. Creators who’ve scaled enough to buy property on the back of their earnings, like the creator-turned-landlady NudeNewz profiled earlier this year, are exactly the kind of established, incorporated operators this deadline is aimed at.
There’s also a quieter reason to get ahead of this one. Adult-content creators already face more scrutiny from banks than most small business owners — a flagged or non-compliant Companies House record is one more thing a risk-averse bank can point to when deciding whether to keep your account open. Getting verified early removes that flag before it becomes a problem.
What to do now
- Check whether you’re listed as a director and/or PSC on your company’s Companies House record, and see if your entry already shows as verified.
- If not, set aside 15–20 minutes to do it yourself for free via GOV.UK One Login, using a passport or UK driving licence.
- If an accountant already files your confirmation statement, ask them this week whether they can verify you as a registered ACSP instead.
- Don’t wait for your confirmation statement date to arrive — PSCs in particular may be asked to verify on a shorter notice period.
- If you have co-directors or a PSC who isn’t you (a partner or manager with a stake in the company, for example), confirm they’ve done theirs too — one unverified person can hold up filings for the whole company.
This is general information, not legal or financial advice — speak to a qualified accountant or solicitor about your specific company and circumstances.
