Company Formation ID Checklist

Don’t risk your company! All Formation agents, including all our competitors, are legally required to obtain Identification under MLR and KYC legislation. We provide a free checking service to help quickly get your documents checked.

Who needs to provide Identification

All officers and the account holder are required to provide ID.

How do I provide the ID?

Our compliance team will email you if they need to see your identification once an account has been created. Any services won’t be activated until the ID has been received.

What ID is needed?

Proof of ID

• Passport
• Photo Driving Licence

Proof of Residential Address (Utility Bill (Gas, Electric or Water)

1. HM Revenue and Customs - Notice of coding ONLY
2. Telephone Bill - excluding mobile Bill
3. Gas, Water, Electricity Bill
4. Mortgage statement
5. Council tax bill (UK residence only)
6. Bank / Credit card statement - (Most online bank accounts are accepted-- e.g Wise, Revolut, N26, Monese) : This must show transactions within the statement. We cannot accept new account statements with no transactions.)
7. Building society statement
8. Letter from benefits agency (UK residence only)
9. P45 or P60 (UK residence only)
10. Financial statement (e.g endowment, pension - need the statement itself)
11. Current benefit book (UK residence only)

The Proof of Residential Address document must:

1. Be dated within the last 3 months
2. Show the account holder/company officer’s name and address
3. Be written in English or accompanied by an English translation (by an Official Sworn Translator)
4. Be a document that has been sent via post and not an online statement/ document

Do I need the documents certified or notarised?

UK Residents

If you pass our online ID checking process, we will not need to obtain certified ID documents.

EU residents

In most instances we will require your ID to be certified.

You can also use this free resource to find a notary ; https://notaries-directory.eu/

Non-UK and Non-EU residents

If you reside outside the UK and EU we will require your ID to notarised by a Public Notary.

Who can certify documents?

We recommend the following professional person or authority can certify documents. In some instances under different circumstances, we can take different certifiers however this will need to be pre-approved by our compliance team.

• Your Company Formations Office Team (You would present the original documents in person**)
• Post Office
• Bank or Building Society Official
• Chartered Accountant
• Solicitor/ Lawyer or Notary
• Local Town Hall

The following persons cannot certifydocuments:

• Those related to you
• Living at the same address; or
• In a relationship with you

** We are not able to certify ID for other people if they are not present in the office at the time of presenting the ID. This means the person who presents the ID must be the person who presents the ID.

What should a certified document look like?

You will need to take the photocopied document and the original and ask the professional person or authority to certify the copy by:

1. Writing: "Certified to be a true copy of the original seen by me" on the document
2. Signing and dating the document
3. Printing their name under the signature
4. Adding their occupation, address and telephone number
5. Stamp the document with their personal or professional stamp (mandatory)

Please Note: The certification must be present on the actual document to be validated successfully. It must be on both the proof of ID and proof of residential address. Please see the image below for a visual representation.

Failure to send the necessary documents

ID documents must be received within 6 weeks of your initial payment. Failure to send an acceptable ID will result in your company being reported to Companies House and the removal of your Registered Office address.