ACCOUNTS GUIDE

Year end accounts explained.

Every UK limited company has to produce a set of accounts once a year and send them to Companies House and HMRC. This guide explains what those accounts are, what goes in them, the deadlines that apply and how to make the job easier.

Figures for the 2026/27 tax year · Last reviewed 21/10/2026

What year end accounts are

Year end accounts are a summary of how a business performed over its financial year and where it stood on the last day of that year. For a limited company, the formal version is called the annual accounts or statutory accounts. They are a legal requirement, not an optional report.

The accounts are built from the company's day-to-day records: sales, costs, bank transactions, assets, debts and stock. If those records are complete and up to date, producing the accounts is mostly a matter of checking and presenting them. If they are not, the year end turns into a catch-up job.

Who has to prepare them

The formal rules on this page apply to limited companies. A company must prepare annual accounts every year, even if it made a loss or did very little trading.

Sole traders and partnerships work differently. They do not send accounts to Companies House. Instead, they report their business income and costs on a Self Assessment tax return. For the 2025/26 tax year, the online return and any tax owed are due by 11:59pm on 31 January 2027. A paper return is due by 11:59pm on 31 October 2026. Good year end figures still matter, because the return is only as accurate as the records behind it.

What goes into a company's annual accounts

A full set of company accounts is normally made up of these parts:

Profit and loss account. Income for the year, less the costs of running the company, giving a profit or a loss.
Balance sheet. A snapshot on the final day of the year: assets, liabilities and amounts owed to and by the company. A director signs it, and a director's name is printed on it.
Notes. Supporting detail that explains how the main figures were arrived at.
Directors' report. Needed by every company except a micro-entity.
Auditor's report. Only some companies need one. It depends on size.

Once the accounts are ready, copies go to all shareholders, to anyone entitled to attend general meetings, to Companies House, and to HMRC as part of the Company Tax Return.

How company size changes what you file

Smaller companies can file less detail. The size test looks at three measures, and a company falls into a size band if it meets at least two of them.

Micro-entities

A company is a micro-entity if it meets two of these: turnover of £1 million or less, £500,000 or less on its balance sheet, and 10 employees or less. A micro-entity can prepare simpler accounts and send Companies House only a balance sheet with less information. It also gets the exemptions open to small companies.

Small companies

A company is small if it meets two of these: turnover of £15 million or less, £7.5 million or less on its balance sheet, and 50 employees or less. A small company can choose whether to send its directors' report and profit and loss account to Companies House. If all members agree, it can send abridged accounts with a simpler balance sheet and notes.

Audits

Small companies can usually use the audit exemption, so their accounts do not need to be audited. A dormant company that qualifies as small does not need an audit either.

Filing less is not preparing less. Even when a small company sends Companies House a cut-down version, its shareholders still receive a copy of the accounts, and HMRC still gets accounts with the Company Tax Return.

Your year end date

A company's financial year ends on its accounting reference date. For a new company, the first accounting reference date is the last day of the month in which the anniversary of incorporation falls. After that, it stays the same each year unless the company changes it.

You can change the accounting reference date for the current period or the one just before it, making the period longer or shorter. This is done online, through commercial software, or on form AA01. It must be done before the filing deadline for the period you want to change. Once the accounts are overdue, it is too late.

The deadlines that apply

One set of accounts feeds three separate deadlines. Two are with HMRC and one is with Companies House. For how the two filings differ, see company tax return vs company accounts.

Companies House accounts: 9 months after the accounting reference date for a private company.
First accounts: if the first accounts cover more than 12 months, they are due 21 months after the date of incorporation, or 3 months after the accounting reference date if that is later.
Corporation Tax payment: usually 9 months and one day after the end of the accounting period.
Company Tax Return: 12 months after the end of the accounting period it covers.

Notice that the tax is normally due before the return. Many companies aim to finish the accounts well before the 9-month point, so they know what to pay and can file both returns at the same time.

Worked example (made up). A hypothetical private company has a year end of 31 March 2026 and is not filing its first accounts. Its accounts are due at Companies House by 31 December 2026. Its Corporation Tax for that year is usually due by 1 January 2027. Its Company Tax Return is due by 31 March 2027.

Tax on the return is worked out from the company's taxable profit. That figure is not the same as the profit in the accounts, because some costs are treated differently for Corporation Tax.

What happens if the accounts are late

Companies House charges an automatic penalty when a private limited company files its accounts late. The amount depends on how late they are:

Up to 1 month late: £150
1 to 3 months late: £375
3 to 6 months late: £750
More than 6 months late: £1,500

The penalty is doubled if the accounts are late 2 years in a row. HMRC has its own penalties for late tax returns and late payment, which are separate from these.

Records you need to keep

Annual accounts are only as good as the records behind them. A company's accounting records must cover:

All money received and spent by the company
Assets the company owns
Money the company owes and money owed to it
Stock held at the year end and the stocktakes used to work it out
Goods bought and sold, and who they were bought from or sold to, unless the business is a retailer

Our checklist of documents needed for a company tax return covers the tax side.

Records must be kept for 6 years from the end of the last financial year they relate to. Some must be kept longer, for example where an asset is expected to last more than 6 years or HMRC is carrying out a compliance check.

Filing changes to plan for

Companies House has said that from 1 April 2028, accounts must be filed using commercial software. If you already keep your books in software, it is worth checking now how your accounts will be produced and filed when that change arrives.

How to make the year end easier

Most year end stress comes from the months before it. Missing receipts, unreconciled bank lines and invoices nobody can find all have to be sorted out before the accounts can be finished. The fix is to keep the books current all year:

Reconcile the bank regularly. Every line matched to a sale, a bill or a receipt.
Chase missing paperwork early. A receipt is easy to find a week later and hard to find a year later.
Review a monthly summary. You see the profit building up and are not surprised by the tax.
Diary the deadlines. Work back from the Corporation Tax payment date, not the filing date.

If you are weighing up doing your own limited company accounts, our guide sets out what is involved.

When the bookkeeping is done this way, the year end becomes a review of numbers that are already right.