The confirmation-statement window: timing outreach to filing deadlines

Every UK company must confirm its details with Companies House every 12 months, with 14 days to file once the review period ends. That published, predictable window is one of the best timing signals in UK B2B sales.

Every UK limited company must confirm its details with Companies House at least once every 12 months, and once its review period ends it has just 14 days to file. Those rules, set out in GOV.UK's confirmation statement guidance, mean every company on the public record has a known, published date on which it must look at its own paperwork. For anyone selling compliance, accountancy or company-admin services, that is a timing signal you can set a calendar by, months in advance.

How the confirmation statement works

The mechanics, per GOV.UK:

• Every company files at least one every 12 months. The confirmation statement (form CS01) confirms that the information Companies House holds is up to date: directors, people with significant control, registered office, SIC codes.
• The review period is 12 months from incorporation or from the date of the last statement.
• The filing window is 14 days after the review period ends. A company incorporated on 1 February has a statement due by 15 February the following year, and every year after.
• Filing costs £50 online or £110 on paper, per Companies House fees current as of 2026.
• Not filing has teeth. GOV.UK notes that Companies House may issue a financial penalty and the company may be struck off, and directors can be prosecuted. There is no quiet way to skip it.

Companies can file early, which restarts the review period from the new date. Most do not: the deadline arrives, the reminder lands, and the task gets done inside the window or shortly before it.

Why a routine filing is a sales signal

The confirmation statement is deliberately mundane, and that is exactly what makes it useful. It is the one moment each year when every company, however quiet, must engage with its own statutory admin. Three things are true in the weeks around that date:

1. Attention is on the paperwork. The directors are looking at their registered office, their officers, their records. A message about handling exactly that is arriving in context instead of interrupting. 2. The date is public and forward-looking. Unlike almost every buying signal in B2B, you do not infer it from behaviour. The public record states when the next statement is due, for every company, in advance. 3. It recurs. Miss a company this year and the same window opens next year. A recurring search against the window never runs out of road.

The confirmation statement's bigger sibling, the annual accounts deadline, works the same way with higher stakes, and the two are covered together in our filing deadlines guide.

Who the window suits

The signal fits anyone whose product removes statutory admin:

• Accountants and bookkeepers, for whom the statement is a natural entry point to the wider compliance relationship. The full deadline-driven playbook is in our guide for accountants and on the accountants page.
• Company secretarial and formation services, for whom the statement is the product itself.
• Virtual office and registered-address providers: the statement is when a director trading from a kitchen table re-reads their home address on a public document and reconsiders.
• Software that manages filings, records or company admin.

Timing the approach

The window rewards being early rather than exact. A practical rhythm:

• 60 to 30 days out: the useful zone. The date is close enough to matter and far enough that nothing is late. A first touch here, referencing the upcoming statement date, reads as informed rather than opportunistic.
• Inside the 14-day window: for most companies the task is now done or in hand, so a first touch lands late. This zone suits a lighter, service-oriented message rather than a pitch.
• After a missed window: GOV.UK is clear about the consequences of not filing, and a company drifting past its date may have a real problem. Tread carefully: a genuinely helpful note beats anything that reads like a circling shark.

One honest caveat: unlike an overdue accounts deadline, an approaching confirmation statement is routine, not distress. It is a context signal, not a crisis signal, and messages should sound like it.

Building the search once

In Leadistry the window is a filter, not a research project. Signals reads filing dates from the public record for every active company, so a search like "companies in my region with a confirmation statement due in the next 60 days, in these SIC codes" is a few clicks, saved once, and set to re-run weekly. Each run delivers only companies you have never been given before, enriched with a named director and a verified business email, and can feed a Flow so the intro and the follow-up send themselves.

The compliance position

The usual rules apply, unchanged by the signal. These are incorporated companies, so B2B email without prior consent is permitted under PECR; identify yourself and carry a working opt-out in every message. The filing dates themselves are public record data about companies, and the named contact you write to is personal data processed under legitimate interest, which we unpack in what legitimate interest actually requires. Nothing about knowing a company's statement date changes your obligations; it just changes when your message is worth reading.

See your patch's calendar

Every company in your target market already has its next statement date on the public record. Start free with 10 leads, filter by the deadline window, and look at what the next 60 days hold.