Filing late costs nothing most days, then £4,500 on one of them
Companies House penalties are banded, not accrued. Derive the cost of a single day and it is £0 on almost every day of the year — except three, where crossing a boundary costs up to 219 times the average day.
- Period
- Current penalty scale
- Published
- August 10, 2026
- Built with
- Databoat
£4,500
is what one more day costs, if it is the day you cross six months
Public · Over 6 months
- Private · Up to 1 month£150
- Private · 1 to 3 months£225
- Private · 3 to 6 months£375
- Private · Over 6 months£750
- Public · Up to 1 month£750
- Public · 1 to 3 months£750
- Public · 3 to 6 months£1,500
- Public · Over 6 months£4,500
- Public · Over 6 months£4,500
- Public · 3 to 6 months£1,500
- Private · Over 6 months£750
- Public · Up to 1 month£750
- Public · 1 to 3 months£750
- Private · 3 to 6 months£375
- Private · 1 to 3 months£225
- Private · Up to 1 month£150
Every other day of the year costs nothing at all. Penalties step at fixed boundaries rather than accruing, so the entire cost of being late lands on three days.
Days late against the penalty owed. Flat stretches cost nothing; the risers are where the money is.
- Public · Over 6 months£7,500→£15,000
- Public · 3 to 6 months£3,000→£6,000
- Private · Over 6 months£1,500→£3,000
- Public · 1 to 3 months£1,500→£3,000
- Private · 3 to 6 months£750→£1,500
- Public · Up to 1 month£750→£1,500
- Private · 1 to 3 months£375→£750
- Private · Up to 1 month£150→£300
Every penalty doubles on a second consecutive late filing. The bar is the surcharge for the repeat.
What was already owed at six months, plus the single day that crosses the boundary.
All eight bands on one rail. Nothing here prepares you for a £4,500 day.
Method
Companies House sets late filing penalties in bands rather than accruing them daily. Databoat read the published scale — four bands for private companies and LLPs, four for public companies — and derived four columns: the cost of the single day that crosses each boundary, the average cost per day if you use the whole band, the ratio between the two, and the doubled penalty that applies when accounts are late in two successive financial years.
The "over 6 months" band is open-ended, so it is modelled at 365 days for the per-day figures. The boundary and doubling columns do not depend on that choice.
The practical reading: once a boundary has been crossed there is no financial urgency until the next one, and the day before a boundary is worth up to £4,500. Any filing schedule built around "get it in soon" is optimising the wrong thing — the only dates that matter are the four in the table.
Companies House — late filing penalties
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Early access
Your files, the same treatment.
This report was built the way Databoat builds a monthly client pack — read the files, work out what is in them, publish. Tell us which report you rebuild every month.