612,565 companies formed
612,565 companies formed in the UK in total View national statistics
2015 was a record year for new companies in the UK
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Frequently Asked Questions View all FAQsYes - If you are wanting to form a company via Inform Direct you will be able to add address services, there are different options available:
The addresses are prestigious London and Edinburgh addresses. This service is currently available for companies registered in England and Wales, and Scotland.
To be able to offer the online service that we do for company formations, we require the checks to be run ‘in-process’ and electronically. Our anti-money laundering check provider is currently only able to provide a sufficient enough reliability of checks for residents of the UK.
If we opened the checks up to residents of other countries, the percentage of persons verifiable electronically (on average) is sufficiently low (largely less than 40%) that the service would be ineffective for those customers, whom would still be charged for the checks, which more often than not, would fail.
From July 2017 to form a UK company through an agent, an anti-money laundering check must be completed on the person/entity forming the company.
The checks that must be completed by a company will vary as they are risk based, but mostly they consist of verifying the identity of the person(s) or directors of an entity and confirming if they are at a high risk of money laundering or terrorist financing i.e. they are a Politically Exposed Person (PEP) or from a high-risk country.
For more information please see our blog – What checks must be done to set up a company?
Once your company has been formed, we'll immediately email your company formation documents, including:
These documents are also automatically saved in your Document Library.
Some of our formation packages also include printed copies of your formation documents, or if not, you can choose to receive printed copies for an additional charge.
There are a number of rules that cover company names including the characters that can be included, words or phrases that can only be used in certain circumstances or with certain supporting evidence, words or phrases that cannot be used, names that are too similar to an existing company and names that can only be used with supporting evidence from a company with a similar name.
The main rules are covered by The Company, Limited Liability Partnership and Business Names (Sensitive Words and Expressions) Regulations 2014 and The Company, Limited Liability Partnership and Business (Names and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2015. Certain specific words or phrases are covered by other legislation which prevents or restricts their use in company names.
Inform Direct’s incorporation process will help you choose a name that should be acceptable.
The Inform Direct company formation process is highly automated and has been designed as a series of very simple steps. There is clear guidance at each step so you will always understand what details you need to provide. You will find that the information required for your new company can be entered very quickly and you will not be asked to re-enter the same information again and again. So if someone is going to be a director, a secretary, a shareholder and a PSC you will only have to enter their details once. Similarly if the same address is being used for the registered office and the service address you will only need to provide it once.
It is very easy to tailor your formation package to include all the elements that you want, but without paying for items that you don't need.
At the end of the process you will be able to review and check all the details you have entered are correct before submitting your company registration application electronically. You will receive immediate confirmation that your application has been safely delivered to Companies House.
As soon as your company has been successfully registered we will alert you by email as well as sending you all your incorporation documents.
Once your company has been registered by Companies House you will also have FREE access to our company secretarial software. This will enable you to print any share or member certificates that have been automatically produced for you during the incorporation process. Similarly, your company statutory registers will have been completed for you and these will also be available to view and print.
Yes, Inform Direct is a Companies House authorised service. This authorisation enables Inform Direct to electronically exchange data direct with Companies House.
This is dependent upon the volume of applications received by Companies House at any one time. However, although we cannot guarantee that your company will be registered within one day, company formation applications are usually accepted within one business day of submission.
If you submit your application to form a company before 10:30 am on a UK business day, you can request that Companies House process the application on the same day. Companies House will charge an additional fee for this service.
You can form any of the following:
with a registered office address in England and Wales, Wales only, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
You can, for all company types other than LLPs, choose to adopt model articles of association or upload your own bespoke articles. In addition for private companies limited by shares you can choose to use Inform Direct’s enhanced model articles.
With Inform Direct you can form your company limited by shares with one or more share classes, and issue subscriber shares that are fully paid, fully unpaid or partly paid. Inform Direct supports various currencies, including British pounds, euros and US dollars. If a currency you want is not available you can ask us to add it.
For unlisted public limited companies the subscriber shares must have any share premium fully paid and have at least 25% of the nominal value paid.
For private companies limited by guarantee only one membership class is allowed for subscribers.
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