What are dormant company accounts?

Instead of filing a full set of annual accounts with Companies House, companies with no ‘significant accounting transactions’ can file a basic set of accounts known as dormant company accounts (DCAs).

If your company is eligible to file dormant accounts, it can save you a lot of time and money in accountancy fees as you will not need to prepare full accounts.

Let’s explore these a little further.

Can I file dormant company accounts?

If your company is considered dormant by Companies House, yes.

Companies House define a company as dormant if it hasn’t had any significant transactions in its financial year. A significant accounting transaction basically means a transaction that needs to be entered into the company’s accounting records. This can be something as simple as a bank interest payment or the settlement of an invoice (however small this may be).

• The limited company dates that you need to know about

The following transactions are not considered significant:

• Companies House fees that have been paid (for example, the fee required to register the company or file a confirmation statement)
• Penalties paid for late filing of annual accounts
• Money paid for shares by shareholders when the company was registered

For a new company, the financial year runs from the company’s date of incorporation to the ‘made up to’ date. Then, the financial year would be from the previous ‘made up to’ date to the current ‘made up to’ date.

Simply put, your company should be able to file dormant accounts if nothing has gone through its accounting books during that financial year.

Abbreviated accounts

Essentially, DCAs are an abbreviated set of accounts for Companies House, submitted using the form ‘Dormant company accounts (DCA)’, also known as form AA02.

The following information must be submitted on this form:

• The company name and company registration number;
• the balance sheet date;
• details of issued share capital – that is the number and class of shares, nominal value, and total equity of shareholders;
• the net assets – that is the called-up share capital not paid, and the cash at bank and in hand;
• the date on which the accounts were approved by the director(s); and
• the name and signature of one or more of the director(s) approving the accounts.

How do I file dormant company accounts?

If you wish to take care of this yourself, you can use Companies House WebFiling or the AA02 paper form.

Alternatively, we can prepare and file the dormant accounts for you, for only £49.99 plus VAT – taking all the hassle out of the process.

If you choose to use our service, we will send you a short questionnaire by email regarding the submission of your accounts. Once we receive your answers, we will file your dormant company accounts with Companies House within 1 working day.

We will then inform you by email when Companies House accepts the accounts. The service is also renewable on an annual basis.

• Our Dormant Company Accounts Service

Is there a penalty for the late filing of dormant accounts?

Yes. It does not matter whether you are filing regular company accounts or dormant accounts – Companies House will impose a penalty for late filing. The total starts at £150 and increases depending on how late your accounts are delivered.

Thanks for reading!

So there you have it, you should now know what dormant company accounts are.

Do you still have questions? No problem. Leave a comment and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.