GlossaryClose & accounts
What is a confirmation statement?
A confirmation statement is the annual filing a UK company makes at Companies House to confirm that the core information held on the public register — registered office, directors, shareholders, and persons with significant control — is up to date. It replaced the older annual return and confirms rather than restates the company's details each time.
In practice, in the UK
The confirmation statement is deliberately narrow: it does not report financial performance, and it is not the vehicle for making changes to the company’s details, only for confirming what is already on record or flagging that something has changed since the last statement. Where something has changed — a new director, a different registered office, a shareholder movement — most of those changes actually need their own separate filing at the time they happen, with the confirmation statement then reflecting a register that is already current rather than being the mechanism that updates it. Companies sometimes treat the confirmation statement as an annual clean-up moment for changes they never got around to filing individually, which is not how Companies House expects the record to be kept.
In Odoo
Odoo has no role in the confirmation statement, since it is a company-secretarial filing rather than an accounting one and draws on company records — directors, shareholders, registered office — that typically live outside an ERP altogether. The practical link is only that whoever manages the accounting calendar in Odoo is well placed to also flag when the annual confirmation statement is coming due.
Common mistakes
- Waiting for the confirmation statement to notify Companies House of a change, instead of filing that change when it happens.
- Treating the confirmation statement as a report on the company’s financial position, which it is not.
- Letting the statement lapse because it looks like a formality rather than a legal filing obligation.
These definitions are for guidance and do not replace professional advice. Each entry carries its last-updated date. Filing deadlines are not listed here: they change every year.