Apply for a Companies House presenter account

This article outlines the steps to take to apply for a presenter account with Companies House as part of the process for preparing to file your Final Accounts and Corporation Tax returns using FreeAgent.

Before you can file accounts through FreeAgent, you will need to apply for a presenter account with Companies House. Once you have a presenter account, you can keep using those details to file each year - you do not need to apply for a new presenter account each year. 

You'll also need to enter the company authentication code issued to you by Companies House when you incorporated the company along with the presenter ID credentials as part of the filing process in FreeAgent.

If you have lost the company authentication code, you can request a copy from Companies House. Alternatively, if you applied for the Presenter Account previously and the Presenter ID and Presenter Authentication Code were sent to you by email, you can try searching for chdfinance@companieshouse.gov.uk in your mailbox, as this will likely be the email address that Companies House sent those credentials from.

Applying for a presenter account

Begin by applying for a presenter account to file company accounts and documents with Companies House.

Filing company accounts and other documents without a fee

If you’re filing company accounts and other documents that do not have a filing fee, you can sign in to Companies House and use their online automated service to apply for a presenter account.

This service will let you apply for and receive your presenter ID and code almost immediately, rather than having to wait up to 5 days for Companies House to process a paper form.

A presenter ID is 11 characters long and is a mixture of numbers and letters. It can either start and end with 000, or start with the letter E followed by 10 digits.

Filing company accounts and other documents with a fee

If you wish to file documents for which Companies House charge a filing fee (formations / CS01 etc.) or charge (mortgage registration) as well as your company accounts, you’ll also need to apply for a Companies House credit account and complete the relevant .pdf forms.

Completing the form

To file documents with a filing fee as well as your company accounts, follow the prompts provided to complete the form.

For section eight of the form, ‘Do you require this account for’, tick the ‘software filing’ checkbox if you plan to file your accounts through FreeAgent, or the ‘both’ checkbox if you also need to file other forms directly to Companies House through their filing platform - for example, a Confirmation Statement.

Once you have completed the form, you’ll need to send it to chdfinance@companieshouse.gov.uk. This could take up to 5 days to process.

Companies House will then send your presenter ID credentials to you. The presenter ID is 11 characters long and is a mixture of numbers and letters. It can either start and end with 000, or start with the letter E followed by 10 digits.

Please note that if you receive your presenter ID credentials from Companies House via email, you will need to wait at least 24 hours before you can use them to file your accounts in FreeAgent.

Entering your presenter account details in FreeAgent

When submitting Final Accounts to Companies House, please enter your presenter ID, presenter authentication code and company authentication code into FreeAgent manually rather than allowing your browser to auto-fill the fields for you, to avoid any errors.