Companies House does not make it easy to find the right contact route. Whether you are trying to correct a filing error, query a registered address, or understand your compliance obligations, knowing how to contact Companies House before you need to urgently matters more than most business owners realise.
This article covers every method for contacting Companies House, what each route is actually useful for, and how SMEs can avoid the delays that come from using the wrong channel.
How to Contact Companies House: The Main Options
There are four primary ways to contact Companies House: telephone, email, web form, and post. Each serves a different purpose, and using the wrong one will cost you time.
The main telephone number for Companies House is 0303 1234 500. Lines are open Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 6pm. This number handles general enquiries, including questions about company registration, filing deadlines, and director changes. If you are calling about a Welsh company, a Welsh-language line is also available.
For email, Companies House operates through a contact form on their website rather than a publicly listed address. The form routes your query to the relevant team, but response times can run to several working days depending on volume. If your matter is time-sensitive, the phone is more reliable.
Post remains the correct route for certain statutory documents. Companies House has two main offices: Cardiff (Companies House, Crown Way, Cardiff, CF14 3UZ) and Edinburgh (Companies House, Fourth Floor, Edinburgh Quay 2, 139 Fountainbridge, Edinburgh, EH3 9FF). Scottish companies file through Edinburgh; all others go through Cardiff.
| Contact Method | Best Used For | Typical Response Time |
|---|---|---|
| Telephone (0303 1234 500) | Urgent queries, filing questions | Same day |
| Web contact form | Non-urgent written queries | 3–5 working days |
| Post (Cardiff or Edinburgh) | Statutory documents, legal filings | 5–10 working days |
| Companies House WebFiling | Online submissions and amendments | Immediate confirmation |
Understanding which method suits your situation saves significant back-and-forth. For most administrative queries from SMEs, the telephone line or WebFiling portal will resolve things fastest.
Contacting Companies House for Specific Filing Issues
Filing issues are the most common reason SMEs need to contact Companies House directly. Late confirmation statements, incorrect officer details, and dormant company notifications each have their own process, and not all of them can be resolved by phone alone.
If you have missed a filing deadline, contacting Companies House promptly by telephone demonstrates good faith and can sometimes prevent the matter escalating to a late filing penalty. That said, Companies House operates under strict statutory rules, so calling does not automatically waive a penalty — it simply opens the conversation.
For disputes about information held on the public register, the process involves submitting a formal query through the web contact form with supporting documentation. Companies House will not remove information from the register simply because it is embarrassing or commercially sensitive; the grounds for removal are narrow and specific. This is a point that trips up a surprising number of business owners who assume the register can be edited freely.
If you need to understand your registered office requirements — for example, if you are changing address or need to understand what qualifies as a valid registered address — the Company House Number: What SMEs Actually Need guide covers the practical implications in more detail.
For Welsh companies or those with specific language requirements, Companies House provides Welsh-language services. This is worth knowing if your company's registered details include Welsh-language elements.
What Companies House Can and Cannot Help With
One of the most useful things to understand before you contact Companies House is the boundary of what they actually handle. Getting this wrong wastes time on both sides.
Companies House maintains the public register of companies in the UK. They process filings, record company information, and administer the registration of new businesses. What they do not do is provide legal advice, mediate commercial disputes, or handle matters that fall under HMRC's remit. Tax questions, VAT registration issues, and PAYE queries all go to HMRC, not Companies House — a distinction that is easy to miss when you are dealing with multiple government bodies at once.
Similarly, Companies House does not handle insolvency proceedings directly, although insolvency practitioners are required to notify Companies House of relevant events. If your query relates to a company that has been struck off or dissolved, the Insolvency Service is often the more appropriate contact.
For SMEs running Google Ads, there is an indirect but real connection here. If your company details on the public register do not match what you have submitted to Google, you can encounter verification issues during the Google Ads identity verification process. We saw this come up repeatedly during our nine years running a marketing agency — particularly for businesses that had changed their trading name without updating their registered details. The AdWords Login: What SMEs Actually Need to Know guide covers what Google expects during account verification.
How to Contact Companies House About a Dissolved Company
If you are trying to restore a dissolved company or query information about a company that has been struck off, the process is different from standard contact routes. This is where understanding how to contact Companies House correctly becomes genuinely time-critical.
For administrative restoration — where a company was struck off unintentionally and the directors want to restore it — you submit form RT01 to Companies House with the appropriate fee. As of 2026, the fee for administrative restoration is £468. This cannot be done by telephone; it requires a formal application.
For court-ordered restoration, the process involves legal proceedings and Companies House is notified of the outcome rather than being the decision-maker. If you are in this situation, a solicitor should be your first contact, not Companies House directly.
Querying information about dissolved companies — such as retrieving historical filing records — can be done through the Companies House online search service, which is free and publicly accessible. If the records you need are not available digitally, you can request historical documents through the contact form, though some older records may involve a retrieval fee.
Call Companies House: What SMEs Actually Need goes deeper on the specific scenarios where a phone call is more effective than the web form.
Companies House and Your Google Ads Account: The Practical Link
This connection is not obvious, but it matters. Google increasingly requires businesses to verify their identity before running certain ad formats, particularly for financial services, housing, and employment-related advertising. The information Google checks often traces back to what is on the public register.
If your registered company name, address, or director information is outdated or incorrect at Companies House, it can create friction during Google's advertiser verification process. Keeping your Companies House record current is therefore not just a compliance matter — it has direct implications for whether your ads run without interruption.
For SMEs managing Google Ads, this is one of those operational details that tends to get discovered at the worst possible time. Understanding how much Google Ads actually costs and ensuring your account verification is clean beforehand avoids campaigns going dark mid-flight.
Overtime is an AI agent that manages Google Ads accounts for SMEs — adjusting bids, pausing underperforming ads, reallocating budget, and sending clear weekly summaries. Knowing how to contact Companies House and keeping your registered details accurate feeds directly into the kind of clean account setup that lets Overtime's automated management operate without unnecessary interruptions.
Alternatives to Direct Contact: Using the Online Portal
For many queries, you do not need to contact Companies House directly at all. The Companies House Service (CHS) and WebFiling portal handle the majority of transactions that SMEs need to complete.
Through WebFiling, you can file confirmation statements, accounts, and officer changes without any human interaction. The portal sends automatic confirmation emails and maintains a record of your submissions. For most SMEs with straightforward filings, this is the fastest and most reliable route.
The Companies House public search is also free and requires no account. You can look up any registered company, view its filing history, access accounts, and download documents. This is worth knowing if you are researching a supplier or potential business partner — the information is all publicly available without needing to contact anyone.
If you use an accountant or company secretary, they will typically handle Companies House filings on your behalf and have their own registered agent access. In that case, you may never need to contact Companies House directly unless something unusual arises.
For SMEs thinking about how administrative compliance fits alongside their marketing operations, it is worth reviewing how business advertising online intersects with the kind of company verification that Google and other platforms increasingly require.
Before You Call: What to Have Ready
If you do decide to contact Companies House by telephone, having the right information to hand makes the call significantly more productive. This is the kind of operational detail that sounds obvious but regularly causes avoidable delays.
You will need your company registration number (CRN) for almost any query. This is the eight-digit number assigned when your company was incorporated. You will also need to confirm the company's registered name, which must match exactly what appears on the register. If you are calling about a specific filing, having the reference number from your filing confirmation email will help the operator locate the record faster.
For authentication purposes, Companies House may ask questions only a director or authorised person should be able to answer. If you are calling on behalf of a client — as we regularly did during agency years — be prepared to explain your relationship to the company and, in some cases, provide written authorisation.
Understanding how to contact Companies House effectively comes down to preparation. The people on the telephone line are helpful, but they work within defined processes that cannot be bypassed by asking the right way.
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If you are an SME keeping your company records in order while also trying to get results from Google Ads, the two activities require similar discipline: accurate information, timely updates, and no loose ends. Knowing how to contact Companies House when something needs correcting is the administrative equivalent of knowing which campaign settings to check when performance drops.
If your Google Ads need the same kind of systematic attention your Companies House filings do, see what Overtime covers and whether it fits your current ad spend. For SMEs running Google Ads without dedicated management, the best way to advertise your business in 2026 starts with having both your compliance records and your ad accounts in order.
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FAQ
How do I contact Companies House by phone?
The main Companies House contact number is 0303 1234 500. Lines are open Monday to Friday from 8:30am to 6pm. Have your company registration number ready before you call.
What is the best way to contact Companies House about a late filing?
Telephone is the most effective route for late filing queries, as it allows you to explain the circumstances in real time. However, contact Companies House as early as possible — waiting until after a penalty notice has been issued makes resolution significantly harder.
How long does Companies House take to respond to emails?
Companies House does not publish a publicly listed email address; contact is made through a web form. Response times typically run to three to five working days, though this can extend during busy periods such as confirmation statement deadlines.
Should I contact Companies House or HMRC about tax issues?
Companies House and HMRC are separate government bodies. Companies House handles company registration and the public register; HMRC handles tax, VAT, and PAYE. If your query relates to tax, contact HMRC directly rather than Companies House.
Can I update my company's registered address by contacting Companies House directly?
You cannot update your registered address by telephone. Address changes must be filed formally using form AD01 through the Companies House WebFiling portal or by post. The change takes effect once Companies House processes the filing, not when you make contact.