How to Check a Company Director

What you can check for free

Companies House maintains a public register of UK companies and their officers. It is free, available around the clock, and no registration is needed to search it. For most straightforward questions, such as whether someone really is a director of the company they claim to represent, it is all you need.

The separate register of disqualified directors, maintained by the Insolvency Service, is also free to search and is the fastest way to check whether someone is barred from running a company.

How to search for a director step by step

The quickest route is to search the company first, then look at its officers. If you only have a person's name, you can search the officer register directly instead.

• →Go to the Companies House company information service and search the company name or registration number.
• →Open the correct company from the results, checking the registered address matches what you expect.
• →Select the officers tab to see current and former directors and secretaries.
• →Open the individual officer to see their appointment history across all companies.
• →If you only have a name, use the officer search instead and work outward from the appointments listed.

What the register actually shows you

An officer record is more informative than people expect, particularly the appointment history, which is often the most revealing part of the whole exercise.

• →Full name and any former names used on filings
• →Month and year of birth (the full date of birth is not published)
• →Nationality, country of residence and stated occupation
• →A correspondence address, which is usually a service address rather than a home address
• →Date of appointment, and date of resignation where they have left
• →Every other current and past directorship held under that identity

How to check whether a director is disqualified

A disqualified director is legally barred from acting as a director or being involved in the management of a company for a set period. The Insolvency Service publishes a searchable register of current disqualifications, and Companies House records also flag disqualification against an officer.

It is worth checking even when nothing else looks unusual, because it takes seconds and the consequence of missing it is significant. If someone disqualified is in practice running the company you are dealing with, that is a serious problem for the company and potentially for you.

How to check who really owns a company

Directors run a company. They do not necessarily own it. To see ownership you need the persons with significant control register, usually shortened to PSC, which every UK company must file.

A person with significant control is broadly someone holding more than 25% of shares or voting rights, or who otherwise exercises significant influence or control. The PSC entry is where you find out whether the person you are dealing with is the actual principal or a nominee acting for someone else.

If a company's PSC is another company, follow the chain upward. Ownership structures that run through several entities, particularly overseas ones, are not automatically suspicious, but they are a reason to look harder before committing.

What Companies House will not tell you

This is the part most people discover too late. The register confirms what has been filed. It does not verify most of it, and it is silent on nearly everything that would actually change a commercial decision.

• →Whether the person is genuinely who they say they are, beyond the identity checks now applied at filing
• →Beneficial ownership deliberately held behind nominees or overseas structures
• →County court judgments, litigation history, or disputes the person has been party to
• →Criminal convictions, which do not appear on the register at all
• →The individual's actual financial standing, as opposed to the company's filed accounts
• →Directorships held overseas, or under a different spelling or name
• →Undisclosed connections to suppliers, competitors or other parties in your transaction
• →Where the money behind the company came from

When a free check is not enough

For low-stakes confirmation, the free register is genuinely sufficient, and there is no need to spend money on it. The calculation changes when the amount at risk is large enough that being wrong would hurt.

Before an acquisition, a significant investment, a joint venture, a senior appointment or a major supply agreement, the questions that matter are the ones the register cannot answer: is this person who they claim, what is their track record where it was not filed in the UK, who really stands behind this company, and is there anything in their history that changes how you would price or structure the deal.

That is what investigative due diligence is for. It starts where the public register ends, using corporate filings, litigation records, credible open sources and discreet enquiry to build a verified picture rather than a filed one.