Most directors are not confused because they are careless – they are confused because the UK uses multiple “deadlines” that sound the same but come from different rules. If you are asking “when are limited company accounts due”, you are usually trying to avoid two outcomes:
- A Companies House late filing penalty, and
- A situation where your company looks non-compliant to banks, suppliers, customers, or HMRC.
This guide explains how Companies House deadlines work, what you actually file, and what typically stops directors from getting their accounts submitted on time.
Your Accounting Reference Date: where it comes from and why it matters
Your accounting reference date (ARD) is your company’s financial year end for Companies House purposes. It drives the period your statutory accounts cover, and your Companies House accounts deadline and when yourlimited company accounts due.
In most cases, your ARD is the last day of the month in which your company was incorporated. For example, if you incorporated on the 12th June, your ARD would be the 30th June. But you should not rely on memory, you can check it in the Companies House register anytime (click here to search for yours).
A useful thought would be to treat the ARD as your “default year end”. Your accountant can prepare management accounts to any date you want, but Companies House will still expect statutory accounts to your ARD unless you formally change it.
Changing your year end: when it helps and when it creates problems
You can change when your limited company accounts due, but it is not a casual tweak. It can help when you want your year end to align with a trading cycle (e.g., seasonal business), you are trying to align group companies, or you need to shorten a period to reduce a messy overlap.
Utilizing an ARD change incorrectly can create some problems though. I’ve seen it used as a last-minute “deadline hack” without understanding knock-on effects. It can lead to an unusually long or short accounts period and it will create multiple accounting periods for Corporation Tax and extra filings.
Changing the year end can be legitimate, but there are rules and limits around how often you can do it and how long a set of accounts can cover. At this point, most directors involve an accountant to confirm the consequences across Companies House, HMRC and internal reporting.
Accounts deadlines: first accounts vs later years
Companies House deadlines are not 9 months after year end in every situation. Directors often miss the first-year rules.
First accounts deadline vs ongoing annual deadline
For a private limited company, first accounts are usually due 21 months after incorporation. Subsequent annual accounts are usually due 9 months after the financial year end (your ARD). So, in year one, you may have a relatively long filing window. From year two onwards, the window is tighter.
Directors sometimes treat the first filing window as permission to ignore bookkeeping. That is a mistake. If your records are a mess, you will use the extra time just cleaning up, not planning.
A practical note for new companies from our experience: if you start trading quickly, VAT and payroll obligations can land long before your first accounts are due. “First accounts aren’t due yet” is not a reason to ignore day-to-day record keeping.
Companies House accounts vs HMRC accounts
Directors often use the phrase “the accounts” as if it is one document. In reality, you have separate outputs for different purposes.
What typically exists at year end:
- Statutory accounts – filed at Companies House
- Corporation Tax computation – adjusts accounting profit to taxable profit.
- CT600 – the Company Tax Return sent to HMRC.
If Companies House accounts show a set of figures that do not align with the computation/CT600, that is exactly the kind of inconsistency that triggers questions.
Also, remember what you file at Companies House may be a reduced version. HMRC still expects full accounts and a tax computation in the correct format. “We filed at Companies House” is not the same as “we filed with HMRC”.
If you are trying to prepare accounts yourself and you are not sure how the numbers flow through to tax, that is a red flag that you should not be DIY-ing it.
What your accountant needs to prepare year-end accounts
Directors often underestimate what is involved in proper accounts preparation. Not because they are unintelligent, but because it is easy to overlook the volume of information that sits behind “a set of accounts”.
At minimum, your accountant will usually need:
- Bank statements for all business accounts
- Sales data. Being invoices raised, income received, any unbilled income, credit notes
- Purchases and overheads data. Being invoices, receipts, supplier statements
- VAT returns (if VAT registered),
- Payroll reports (even if it is director-only payroll)
- Dividend records
- Details of any director’s loan account movements (money in, money out)
- Finance agreements/loans, hire purchase schedules, interest statements
- Details of assets bought and sold during the year
What usually slows things down is not the accounts work. It is waiting for missing information. If you want accounts prepared efficiently, make the data easy to find.
Late accounts: penalties, director responsibility and real-world consequences
The Companies House accounts deadline is not optional. If you are late, penalties apply automatically.
Why leaving it “a bit late” costs more than you think
Late filing often costs more than the penalty itself because:
- penalties escalate the later you are,
- repeated late filing can double penalties,
- professional fees rise when work becomes urgent,
- directors lose time dealing with correspondence and explanations.
There is also reputational impact. Many commercial counterparties check Companies House. Late filing can raise questions about competence and solvency, even when the business is fine. In extreme cases, persistent failure to file can lead to escalation from Companies House. Most directors want to avoid being anywhere near that.
Practical next steps if you are struggling with filing your accounts and tax returns: pull your Companies House record, confirm your ARD and filing deadline today, and review whether your bookkeeping is good enough to meet it. If it isn’t, book a discussion with an accountant before you are in the last few weeks, that is when professional help becomes worth paying for because it prevents expensive urgency and reduces risk.
