Quick summary
Your review period ends 12 months after the company was incorporated, or 12 months after the date your last confirmation statement was made up to. You then have 14 days from the end of that review period to file. The date is on the company's own page on the Companies House register, and it moves every time you file, so a date written down two years ago is probably wrong now.
Nobody in a self-managed building knows this date off the top of their head. It is not a birthday, it does not fall on the same day as the accounts, and it has usually been inherited from a director who has since sold up.
So the answer to "when is ours due" is almost always: go and look, because whatever anyone remembers is out of date.
Where the real date lives
Search your company on the Companies House register and open its overview page. The confirmation statement section shows two things: the date the last statement was made up to, and the next statement date, described as "next statement date" with a filing deadline underneath.
That deadline is the one that matters. Everything else, including anything in a spreadsheet or a WhatsApp group, is a copy.
How the date is worked out
- Your review period runs for 12 months. It starts the day after your last confirmation statement was made up to, or, for a brand new company, on the date of incorporation.
- When that 12 months ends, the review period is over. That end date is your "made up to" date for the next statement.
- You then have 14 days to file. Not a month, not until the end of the following month. Fourteen days.
So a company incorporated on 3 March has a review period ending 2 March the following year, and a filing deadline of 16 March.
Filing early moves the date
This surprises people. If you file a confirmation statement before your review period ends, the date you make it up to becomes the new anchor, and your next review period runs 12 months from there.
Filing three months early does not buy you a quiet fifteen months. It shifts your whole cycle forward by three months, permanently, until you shift it again.
That is not a reason to avoid filing early. It is a reason to write the new date down afterwards rather than assuming the old one still applies.
The 14 days is the part that catches people
Twelve months is long enough to forget. Fourteen days is short enough that forgetting is expensive.
The gap between "we know roughly when it is" and "we have actually filed" is where most overdue statements happen. It is rarely neglect. It is a fortnight arriving while somebody is on holiday.
If it has already gone past, that is a solvable problem and not yet a disaster. See what actually happens when you miss the deadline, and, for the question everybody asks next, whether there is a fine.
Before the date, not on it
The filing itself takes minutes if the records are right. It takes weeks if they are not, because a share transfer or a director change has to be sorted first.
Aim to look at the records a month before the deadline rather than during the 14 days. Our confirmation statement checklist is the list to work through, and a worked example shows what a filled-in one looks like for a four-flat building.
Frequently asked questions
How many days do I have to file a confirmation statement?
Fourteen days from the end of your review period. The review period itself is 12 months, running from the day after your last statement was made up to, or from incorporation for a new company.
Is the confirmation statement due on the same date every year?
Only if you file at the same point each year. Filing early resets the anchor, so your next review period runs 12 months from the date you actually made the statement up to, not from the old deadline.
Where do I find our next confirmation statement date?
On the company's overview page on the Companies House register, under the confirmation statement heading. It shows both the last "made up to" date and the next due date, and it is updated as soon as a statement is accepted.