Companies House fees are tax deductible when they are ongoing costs of keeping your company compliant, but not when they are one-off costs of bringing the company into existence, and not when they are penalties. The £50 online confirmation statement fee reduces your taxable profit. The £100 incorporation fee does not. Neither does a late filing penalty. That split is the whole answer, and the rest is knowing which bucket a given payment falls into.
Which Fees Reduce Your Taxable Profit
Recurring administrative payments to Companies House during normal trading are revenue expenditure. They sustain a business that already exists, which is exactly what the deduction rules are built for. Every trading deduction has to be incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the trade, a test that comes from Section 54 of the Corporation Tax Act 2009 for companies and Section 34 of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005 for unincorporated businesses.1Legislation.gov.uk. Corporation Tax Act 2009, Section 542GOV.UK. Business Income Manual – Wholly and Exclusively: Overview Compliance fees clear that test comfortably: without filing, you cannot lawfully trade.
The common deductible fees, at the rates that took effect on 1 February 2026, are:3Companies House. Companies House Fees4Changes to UK Company Law. Changes to Companies House Fees
- Confirmation statement: £50 online, £110 on paper, filed at least once every 12 months5Companies House. Filing Your Company’s Confirmation Statement
- Change of company name: £20 online, £30 on paper, £85 for same-day digital
- Registration of a charge: £14 digital, £24 paper
- Voluntary strike off: £13 online, £18 paper
The confirmation statement fee jumped from £13 to £50 in February 2026, so figures pulled from older records or last year’s software templates will be wrong. Record these in your profit and loss account under administrative expenses or legal and professional fees, and keep them separate from the non-deductible items below so the final profit figure stays clean.
Why Incorporation Fees Are Not Deductible
The fee you pay to form a company is capital expenditure. It creates the business structure itself rather than supporting the trade the structure carries on, and HMRC’s Partnership Manual states plainly that fees incurred in connection with forming a business entity, incorporating a partnership’s business, or converting to an LLP are disallowed as capital costs.6GOV.UK. Partnership Manual – PM163450 – Costs Connected With the Capital Structure of a Business The Capital v Revenue Expenditure Toolkit reinforces the general position that capital expenditure is not allowable against revenue profits.7HM Revenue & Customs. Capital v Revenue Expenditure Toolkit
Current incorporation fees are £100 online, £124 on paper, and £156 for same-day software filing.3Companies House. Companies House Fees The cash amounts are small, so the practical tax cost of losing the deduction is limited. The principle carries further, though: professional fees paid to a solicitor or accountant to handle the incorporation itself are capital in the same way, because they attach to the same event.
Late Filing Penalties
This is where owners most often get the treatment wrong. Filing your annual accounts late triggers an automatic penalty that grows the longer you wait. For a private company, the tiers are £150 up to one month late, £375 for one to three months, £750 for three to six months, and £1,500 beyond six months. Public companies pay considerably more at each tier, and filing late in two successive years doubles the amount.8GOV.UK. Late Filing Penalties
None of it is deductible. HMRC’s Business Income Manual treats fines for breaking the law as not incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the trade, and a late filing penalty is a fine for missing a statutory deadline.9GOV.UK. Business Income Manual – BIM42515 – Specific Deductions: Administration: Fines The same logic covers penalties for missing the confirmation statement deadline, where Companies House can fine you up to £5,000 and eventually strike the company off.5Companies House. Filing Your Company’s Confirmation Statement The underlying £50 filing fee is deductible. The penalty for forgetting it is not. A small amount of diary management saves the penalty and preserves the deduction.
LLPs and Sole Traders
LLPs pay largely the same fees as limited companies. Incorporation is £100 via software or £124 on paper, the confirmation statement is £50 online or £110 on paper, and the tax treatment tracks the company rules: ongoing compliance is deductible, formation is capital.3Companies House. Companies House Fees6GOV.UK. Partnership Manual – PM163450 – Costs Connected With the Capital Structure of a Business
Sole traders do not register with Companies House, so the question only surfaces if a sole trader decides to incorporate. At that point the incorporation fee is capital. Pre-trading expense relief covers certain revenue expenses in the seven years before trading begins, but it specifically excludes capital costs, so it does not rescue the registration fee.10GOV.UK. Business Income Manual – BIM46351 – Specific Deductions: Pre-Trading Expenditure: Scope
Where These Fees Go on Your Return
For a limited company, deductible Companies House fees flow through the profit and loss account into the figures reported on the CT600.11HM Revenue & Customs. Company Tax Return CT600 There is no dedicated box for them; they sit inside administrative expenses, and the net profit you report already reflects the deduction. The discipline that matters is keeping formation fees and penalties out of that total. If they drift in, the return understates your taxable profit.
For a partnership or LLP, the deductible fees appear in the partnership tax return, and each partner’s share of the resulting profit or loss carries across to their Self Assessment. Individual partners do not report the fees separately; the partnership handles them centrally and allocates the outcome by the profit-sharing agreement.
Keep the receipts and Companies House confirmation emails for every payment. HMRC does not usually query small administrative fees, but if a return is picked for review, records showing what was paid and when will settle the point quickly.