UK Company incorporations drop 5.7% amid tightened rules

The number of new companies being incorporated in the United Kingdom has fallen as tougher rules aimed at identifying who is behind businesses begin to take effect.

Some 402,000 companies were incorporated across the UK during the first half of 2026, according to NatWest and Beauhurst’s New Startup Index. That represented a 5.7% decline compared with the same period last year.

Steve Blacker, Senior Director at Vistra – a top UK financial services firm – suggested the decline could be an early consequence of tougher Companies House requirements.

Among the reforms is mandatory identity verification for company directors and other key individuals, making it more difficult for persons to establish or control companies without their identities being properly verified. Blacker said the increased scrutiny could ultimately produce a “cleaner, more reliable register” and strengthen confidence in the UK as a place to conduct business.

Blacker warned that as the UK’s identity-verification transition concludes in November, businesses will face even greater pressure to ensure their ownership records and corporate filings are accurate and up to date.

The development in the UK is particularly relevant to the BVI, whose financial services industry relies heavily on company incorporations.

The UK has for years pressured its Overseas Territories, including the BVI, to increase transparency around beneficial ownership — essentially information identifying the people who ultimately own or control companies.

The BVI has committed to allowing persons with a “legitimate interest” to access certain beneficial ownership information. However, the UK ultimately wants the Overseas Territories to establish publicly accessible registers.

The UK argues that greater ownership transparency makes it harder for companies and complex corporate structures to be used to conceal illicit wealth, money laundering and other financial crimes. But the BVI continues to hold that making its registers fully public will decrease business within the financial services industry, which is the main economic earner for the territory.