How to prepare year-end accounts
Year-end refers to the end of your company’s accounting period, also called the accounting reference date. It’s when you close out the financial year and prepare the statutory accounts that get filed with Companies House and, separately, with HMRC. For an overseas-owned UK company, this isn’t just a formality, it underpins your UK tax position, your creditworthiness, and how your business appears on the public record.
Getting the timing right matters more than most first-time UK filers expect. There’s a real difference between your first set of accounts and every set after that, the deadlines aren’t the same, and missing either one triggers automatic penalties from Companies House regardless of the reason.
This guide covers what actually has to be filed, current company size thresholds and what they mean for your reporting burden, and the deadlines that apply from your first year onward.
What Year-End Accounts Actually Are
Year-end, or annual, accounts are the financial statements your company prepares for its accounting reference period, usually 12 months, then files with Companies House and, separately, with HMRC alongside your Company Tax Return. This applies whether your UK entity is a subsidiary, a branch, or a standalone UK-registered company, the requirement to file doesn’t disappear based on how simple or complex your UK structure is.
Your accounting reference date is set automatically when you incorporate, based on the last day of the month in which incorporation happened, one year on. Many overseas-owned companies change this to align with their global parent’s own financial year, which Companies House allows, subject to limits on how often and how far you can shift it.
Company Size and What It Changes
Which set of rules applies to your accounts depends on your company’s size, and the size thresholds changed significantly and recently. From 6 April 2025, the turnover and balance sheet thresholds for each category rose by roughly 50%. A company now qualifies as micro if it meets two of: turnover up to £1 million, balance sheet total up to £500,000, and up to 10 employees. Small company status applies with turnover up to £15 million, balance sheet total up to £7.5 million, and up to 50 employees. Medium-sized status covers turnover up to £54 million, balance sheet total up to £27 million, and up to 250 employees.
This matters directly for an overseas-owned UK subsidiary that might previously have sat in the medium category and now qualifies as small, since size determines both what you have to disclose publicly and whether an audit is mandatory. Small companies generally qualify for audit exemption, unless excluded for reasons like being part of an ineligible group, and can file simplified, “filleted” accounts, a balance sheet and limited notes, without making the full profit and loss account or directors’ report public.
That simplification has a shelf life worth planning around. From accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2027, small companies will need to disclose more information and file using commercial software rather than web-based filing. From April 2028, small companies will also need to start filing their profit and loss account publicly, removing the option to keep it off the public record. Neither change is imminent, but they’re worth factoring into your reporting approach now rather than treating “small company” status as permanently low-disclosure.
Why It Matters for Overseas Companies
Your UK accounts are genuinely public. Once filed, anyone, including customers, suppliers, competitors, and prospective UK banking partners, can view them through the Companies House register. For an overseas-owned company still establishing UK credibility, what appears there, and how much of it appears, matters more than it might for a business that’s traded here for decades.
There’s also a coordination challenge specific to overseas ownership. If your UK entity feeds into a group account prepared abroad, your year-end accounts need to reconcile properly with that wider reporting, including intra-group transactions, transfer pricing entries, and consistent treatment of accruals and prepayments. This is one of the areas where a UK accountant unfamiliar with your group structure can genuinely slow things down, since they’re reconciling two sets of books rather than one.
How It Works in the UK
Your first set of accounts covers the period from incorporation to your accounting reference date, and is due 21 months after the date of incorporation, which is usually a longer window than every subsequent filing. Every set after that is due 9 months after the end of the relevant accounting period.
Your Company Tax Return, filed separately with HMRC using form CT600, is due 12 months after the end of your accounting period, a longer deadline than the Companies House filing. Corporation tax itself, though, has to be paid earlier: within 9 months and 1 day of your year-end, regardless of when the return itself is due. This gap between the payment deadline and the filing deadline catches out businesses used to systems where tax due and tax return timing line up.
Common Mistakes International Businesses Make
The most common mistake is leaving preparation until close to the deadline. Chasing outstanding invoices, reconciling bank statements, and confirming supplier balances all take longer than expected, starting this work a month or so before your filing deadline gives enough room to catch and fix issues before they become late-filing problems.
A second common mistake is assuming corporation tax payment and the tax return itself share a deadline. They don’t. Payment is due 9 months and 1 day after year-end, three months before the CT600 return itself is due, and Companies House penalties for late accounts start automatically, regardless of the reason for the delay.
A third mistake, and an increasingly relevant one given how recently they changed, is working from outdated company size thresholds when deciding whether audit exemption or simplified filing applies. A business that checked its size classification before April 2025 may now qualify as a smaller category than it did before, with real implications for both audit requirements and what has to be made public.
How Paul Beare Helps With This
Our UK year end accounts and statutory reporting service https://www.paulbeare.com/end-of-year-accounts/Â prepares and files statutory accounts for overseas-owned UK companies, confirms which size category and filing rules currently apply, and advises on audit exemption eligibility. We also liaise directly with your UK tax advisers to keep your Company Tax Return and corporation tax position aligned with your accounts.
If your UK company feeds into a group account prepared abroad, we support the consolidation and reconciliation work that requires, including transfer pricing entries and intra-group balances. And if you’re considering changing your accounting reference date to align with a global parent’s financial year, our guide on changing a company’s accounting year end https://www.paulbeare.com/blog/changing-a-companys-accounting-year-end/ covers what’s allowed and how often.
Questions & Answers
When are UK year-end accounts due?
Your first set is due 21 months after incorporation. Every subsequent set is due 9 months after the end of your accounting period. These are Companies House deadlines and are separate from your Company Tax Return deadline with HMRC.
What are the current UK company size thresholds?
As of 6 April 2025: micro companies have turnover up to £1 million, small companies up to £15 million, and medium companies up to £54 million, each also assessed against balance sheet and employee thresholds. A company must meet two of the three criteria to qualify for a category.
Do small companies still need an audit?
Generally not. Most small companies qualify for audit exemption, though exclusions apply for certain groups, sectors, and where shareholders holding at least 10% demand one.
