Company Register Clean-Up: 151,000 Addresses Removed in the Latest ECCTA Report

Company Register Clean-Up: 151,000 Addresses Removed in the Latest ECCTA Report

Companies House removed 151,000 misused registered office addresses from the company register between March 2024 and March 2026, according to its third progress report under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023.

The report, published on 11 June 2026 and covering the year to 31 March 2026, sets out the scale of the clean-up now under way. It was presented to Parliament under section 213(1) of the Act, with further reports due every 12 months until 2030.

How the company register is being cleaned

Address misuse has been a central focus. Alongside the 151,000 registered office addresses, Companies House removed 119,000 officer addresses and 95,200 addresses belonging to people with significant control, together with 22,900 documents. It placed 920 companies on the pathway to expedited strike-off and issued 1,354 penalty warnings to serially non-compliant companies that had failed to file a confirmation statement.

Identity verification is the other pillar. Since mandatory checks began in November 2025, nearly 4 million individuals have verified their identity and linked it to their appointments. Companies House sent more than 750,000 default letters to those who had not yet complied, with casework beginning on potential court action and some cases referred to the Insolvency Service. The removals are the visible edge of a much larger casework operation, and the agency reports that the pace of correction has risen since new enforcement guidance took effect in late 2024.

What the figures reveal about abuse

The report attributes half of all register abuse to fraud and a further quarter to illicit finance, including money laundering and sanctions evasion. That breakdown explains why so much activity targets false addresses and unverified appointments, the raw material of shell companies and straw-man directors.

Enforcement is becoming more visible. The report records five companies shut down by the High Court after filing false, and in some cases forged, accounts that claimed turnovers of up to £642 million despite no genuine trading. The Insolvency Service opened those investigations on referrals from Companies House.

 

The company register in context

Scale matters when reading these numbers. The annual report for 2025 to 2026 records 5.48 million companies on the register at 31 March 2026, up from 5.43 million a year earlier, with the data accessed 14.6 billion times over the year. Incorporations reached 815,280 and 787,261 companies were dissolved. Against that volume, the removals represent targeted correction rather than wholesale change.

The figures show what is being taken out and verified, but they do not measure what slips back in. Companies House describes the task as moving from a passive register to what its chief executive called a trusted guardian of critical data, and warns that preventing future misuse is the harder test. Collaboration is part of the story too. Companies House, the Insolvency Service and HM Revenue and Customs now share intelligence, profile risk and intervene earlier, targeting patterns such as abusive phoenixism, where a company is liquidated to shed liabilities while the same trade continues through a new entity.

Asset searches and the company register

For anyone relying on public data, the practical effect is a register that reads differently than it did two years ago. Verified identities and removed false addresses change what an asset search or a corporate check against the company register returns, and a search run today may surface gaps where entries have been stripped out. Cross-referencing the register against independent sources, as set out in the 2023 Act, remains essential when tracing companies, directors and the assets behind them. A structured asset trace reads those signals in context, and our guide to what an asset search can tell you explains the limits.

If you need to trace assets or verify who really stands behind a company, complete the form below to get in touch with the Tremark team.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the company register clean-up?

It is the programme of identity verification, address removals and enforcement Companies House is running under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 to improve the accuracy of the register.

How many addresses were removed?

Companies House removed 151,000 misused registered office addresses, 119,000 officer addresses and 95,200 addresses of people with significant control between March 2024 and March 2026.

Does a cleaner register replace an asset search?

No. A more accurate register helps, but it still shows only what companies have filed. Tracing hidden assets or the people behind a company usually needs additional, independent enquiries.