What is The Gazette? 

For over 350 years, it’s charted the UK’s history, officially recorded public information, and published an online profile for every single UK company registered at Companies House – but have you ever heard of The Gazette?

Despite its status as the official public record, for many UK business owners, its existence remains a mystery. In this blog, we’ll uncover what The Gazette is, and what you should know about it as a business owner.

Let’s get started.

Official public record

Spanning as far back as 1665, The Gazette has recorded over 2 million notices of historical events, including the Great Plague, Wellington’s victory at Waterloo, and more recently the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.

Since the publication’s early beginnings, where it published news for the Crown and Executive, it has become the official notice board of the Government. As well as detailing military appointments and promotions, royal news, and important financial, public, and legal notices, it also records an online public profile of every UK business registered with Companies House.

Its aim, it says, is to ‘provide an accurate and unbiased picture of a business on an official platform’ using information from official sources.

Over 200,000 notices are published every year and permanently recorded in The Gazette. It has come to be a trusted library of information that’s accessed on a daily basis by people and organisations across the country, including banks, legal professionals, members of the general public, genealogists, and historians.

What is my Gazette company profile and how is it formed?

Your Gazette company profile is a free and comprehensive record of company data, presented on a dedicated online page, displaying up-to-date information about your company.

You may not know it, but if your company is registered on Companies House, then your online Gazette profile already exists.

The profile is formed by pulling in data from multiple official sources such as The Gazette’s own records and notices, as well as data from Companies House.

Can I make changes to my Gazette company profile?

Yes. Although your company profile is automatically created on your behalf, you can claim ownership of your profile and customise your company information to include more details if you wish to. However, this does involve a small fee.

If you want your profile to stand out to people who may be looking for it through The Gazette’s search function, you can add useful details such as:

• Your website URL
• Your company logo
• Links to your social media pages
• A contact number
• A personalised introduction to your company

A customised profile on The Gazette not only helps make your company more distinctive to people searching, but it can also help improve legitimacy and demonstrate your corporate compliance when bidding on tenders or quoting for work.

• A guide to uploading documents to Companies House
• The difference between accounts for Companies House and accounts for HMRC
• 15 reasons why company formations are rejected

To customise your profile, visit The Gazette website and enter your registered company details, including your company registration number and director’s details.

If your email address does not correspond with your company name, you will need to send additional documents to verify your identity.

Once registered and verified, you’ll receive an email with a link that will allow you to log in to your company profile account and easily make customisations to your online profile. You should note that any changes you make can take up to two days to process.

Once logged in, you can also download the official Gazette digital company badge, and link your company profile to your website footer as well as online communications.

Can I remove my company profile?

As mentioned, the information featured in your company profile is pulled from official records in The Gazette or from data on Companies House – or a combination of the two. It is required by statute to be published in The Gazette and therefore you cannot remove it.

However, if you have any concerns regarding the information featured in your company profile, you should contact The Gazette to discuss this with them.

How does a Gazette company profile help my business?

As a trusted and reliable source of information, having your company profile in The Gazette can strengthen your credibility as a business with potential customers.

Every single registered company in the UK features in The Gazette and it is thought that their online database receives around 17 million page views each year.

Thanks for reading

We hope you’ve found this post useful and that it’s helped clarify the mystery of the official public record, The Gazette.

If you have any questions, please leave us a comment below and we’ll come back to you.