Dormant status has a specific meaning: your company is dormant for Companies House purposes if it has had no significant accounting transactions during the financial year.

Getting dormant status wrong is a common reason dormant company accounts get rejected, catching out even careful dormant companies. Getting dormant accounts wrong is a trap, and it's why dormant companies need an accountant who checks the details.

Dormant For Companies House Is Not Always The Same As Dormant For HMRC

A company can be dormant for Companies House and still have a different position with HMRC. Dormant companies often assume HMRC treats them the same way, which isn't always true.

A dormant company usually has no Corporation Tax to pay, but you still need to pay Corporation Tax if the company is trading. A company that is dormant for Corporation Tax purposes doesn't need to submit a company tax return while that status holds. We contact HMRC to confirm dormant status.

Small Things That Can Quietly End Your Company's Dormant Status

Bank interest, a share issue, or other income received by the company can all count as significant accounting transactions and end dormant status for the year. Any such transaction should be flagged to us before it happens.

Filing fees paid to Companies House and late filing penalties are the exception, along with money paid for shares when the company was first set up. Filing fees paid rarely change year to year, and we file dormant paperwork the same way for every company, every time. This includes money paid for shares at incorporation, and any account money paid that simply sat untouched in the company's account.

If your company holds property, investments, shares, loans, or money owed between group companies, we check it all before confirming your dormant company accounts are ready to file.

We only take on work we can do properly, checking your company is dormant before we file anything. As an accountancy firm, we act for dormant companies across every region of the UK, and dormant companies remain our largest area of work.

We know exactly what counts as significant accounting transactions, often the hardest part for a first-time company director to judge. We understand what dormant companies need because it's all we work on. We treat every one of a company's annual filings as equally important, and we ask a short set of questions up front to rule out significant transactions before anything is filed.

Companies House processed around 16.5 million filings during 2025/26, and roughly 4.325 million confirmation statements went in during the same period. With that much going through the system, small errors on a form can easily get missed and picked up later as a penalty.

We hold your Companies House authentication code securely, so only we can file on your company's behalf, and we check every submission against the Companies House online service before it's sent. Companies House also brought in compulsory identity verification for directors and PSCs from November 2025, and confirmed that annual accounts must move to software-only filing from April 2028.

Our fees for filing dormant company accounts typically fall between £150 and £300, while accountants commonly price dormant company accounts between £150 and £400, and some firms set a flat fee of £250 plus VAT. Accountant-led filing for a single dormant company can start from around £80 to £150. Filing dormant accounts costs less than filing accounts for a trading company.

That's separate from the Companies House confirmation statement fee, which rose from £34 to £50 for online filing from 1 February 2026.

Pricing stays consistent for dormant companies of every size, and applies just as much to limited companies with a single shareholder as to larger group structures. Whether you need us to file annual accounts for the first time or catch up on several years at once, we'll always confirm your fee before we start.

Our fee assumes no significant accounting transactions during the year. If there have been, we'll flag it before filing. This price is a rough guide, and the actual cost varies depending on how many years of accounts need bringing up to date and how many companies you need us to look after.

A dormant company doesn't stay dormant forever. Some restart trading, some get used to hold a company name for a future venture, and some just need closing down properly.

If your company is about to restart trading, we reactivate Corporation Tax with HMRC, review whether you need to register for VAT again, and get payroll running if you're taking staff back on. We also handle dormant subsidiaries, Corporation Tax queries, and directors' loan accounts. We review your financial year-end date as soon as we take you on, and nothing changes about your financial year just because the company is dormant.

Some directors keep a dormant company purely to protect a company name for a future venture, or as part of a group of companies limited by shares under one holding structure. Our dormant company clients are often companies limited by guarantee or by shares.

If restarting isn't on the cards, keeping a company dormant year after year isn't always worth the ongoing filing costs. We can also handle your Companies House confirmation statements alongside a strike-off application, so nothing is left outstanding on the company's public record.