Companies House Identity Verification Passport Requirements

This guide covers the detailed passport requirements for Companies House identity verification, including validity rules, photo quality standards, machine-readable zone requirements and the common reasons passports are rejected during verification.

Basic passport requirements

For Companies House identity verification, your passport must meet these minimum requirements:

• Current and valid — the passport must not have passed its expiry date
• Machine-readable — it must contain the two lines of machine-readable text (MRZ) at the bottom of the data page
• Genuine and unaltered — no tampered, forged or modified documents
• Physically intact — no water damage, torn pages, missing laminates or faded ink

Validity requirements

Your passport must be valid on the date you attempt verification. There is no minimum remaining validity requirement (unlike travel, where some countries require six months’ validity). However, if your passport expires tomorrow, you should still have it accepted today, but it is wise to verify well before the expiry date.

Expired passports are not accepted under any circumstances, regardless of how recently they expired.

Machine-readable zone (MRZ) requirements

The MRZ is the two lines of text at the bottom of the passport data page, printed in a fixed-width font. It contains your name, nationality, date of birth, passport number and expiry date in a standardised format that verification systems read automatically.

For verification to succeed:

• Both lines of the MRZ must be fully visible in your document image
• No characters should be obscured by damage, stickers or stamps
• The text must be sharp enough for optical character recognition

Photo quality requirements

The photo in your passport is used for the liveness check, where the verification system matches your live face to your document photo. For this to work:

• The photo must be clear, sharp and not faded
• It must not be covered by a laminate bubble, scratch or other damage
• If the photo was taken many years ago, significant changes in your appearance may make matching difficult (consider renewing your passport if the photo is very old)

Common reasons passports are rejected

1. Expired — the most basic and common reason
2. Poor image quality when photographed — glare from flash on the laminated page, shadows, blur or cropping
3. MRZ not visible — the document image cuts off the bottom of the page
4. Damaged passport — water damage, delamination or physical wear
5. Non-machine-readable passport — very old passports without MRZ lines
6. Name mismatch — the passport name does not match the Companies House register

UK vs foreign passport requirements

The physical requirements are the same for UK and foreign passports. The difference is the verification route:

• UK passport — accepted on both GOV.UK One Login and the ACSP route
• Foreign passport — accepted only through the ACSP route

Verify with your passport

Companies House ID Verification provides detailed document guidance and a fixed £19 fee per person. Check the requirements page for full details, or start your verification.