How do I check if a UK director has been disqualified?

Search the Companies House Disqualified Officers Service at find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/register-of-disqualifications/A. It is the official register, free to use, no login required. Search by individual director name or by company name. The register shows: officer name, disqualification start and end dates, the case identifier, the disqualifying authority, and the case reason. The register is maintained by the Insolvency Service under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 (CDDA).

Why do UK directors get disqualified?

Disqualifications are issued under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 (CDDA) by the Insolvency Service, the court, or the Secretary of State. The most common grounds: section 6 (unfit conduct in the management of an insolvent company), section 8 (unfit conduct following inspector report), section 9A (competition law breaches), section 10 (failure to pay PAYE / VAT), and section 15 (Companies House identity verification failure under ECCTA 2023). The Insolvency Service publishes ~1,200-1,600 director disqualifications per year, the majority via section 6 undertakings rather than court orders.

How long do director disqualifications last in the UK?

Between 2 and 15 years, with the length tied to the severity of the conduct. Section 6 disqualifications band: 2-5 years for less serious conduct, 6-10 years for serious conduct, 11-15 years for particularly serious conduct (per the established sentencing guidelines in Re Sevenoaks Stationers (1991)). Section 10 disqualifications (PAYE/VAT failures) are typically 2-5 years. The register includes start and end dates for every entry.

What does the disqualified director register NOT tell me?

Several useful things. First, it does not show directors who SHOULD have been disqualified but were never reported, disqualification requires the Insolvency Service to investigate, and not every insolvency triggers an investigation. Second, it does not show directors who have allowed their other companies to be liquidated in the past without ever being disqualified. Third, it does not surface phoenix-pattern signals where a director re-incorporates after a liquidation. Fourth, it does not flag companies where a disqualified director sits as a Person with Significant Control (PSC) but not formally on the board. RecoupIQ's Forensic Report cross-checks against all four.

Can a disqualified director still control a UK company?

Formally no. Under section 11 of the CDDA, acting as a director, shadow director, or being involved in the management of a UK company while disqualified is a criminal offence punishable by up to 2 years in prison. In practice, some disqualified individuals continue to exercise control informally, through family members appointed as nominees, through ownership of the shares without a director role, or as a "shadow director" giving instructions without being formally appointed. The Insolvency Service prosecutes section 11 breaches but enforcement is uneven.

What does a disqualification mean for me as a creditor of one of the director's OTHER companies?

It is a major risk signal. A director disqualified for unfit conduct in Company A is statistically more likely to fail to pay creditors of Company B, especially if the disqualifying conduct involved late filings, unpaid HMRC liabilities, or asset transfers ahead of insolvency. Best action: pull a Forensic Report on the company you trade with that flags the directors' full disqualification history, ECCTA verification status, and any phoenix-pattern indicators against their other directorships. The data is all public, the work is correlating it.

Does the ECCTA 2023 identity verification deadline affect disqualifications?

Yes. The 18 November 2025 ECCTA deadline introduced section 1167K of the Companies Act 2006, which provides that an unverified director can be disqualified by the Secretary of State without court order under the CDDA. From November 2025 forward, "directors who failed identity verification" appears as a new category on the disqualifications register. Early indications from the Insolvency Service 2024-25 Annual Report suggest several hundred section 1167K disqualifications in the first year.

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UK Due-Diligence Guide

How to check if a UK director is disqualified, and what the register doesn't show.

The Companies House Disqualified Officers Service is the official UK register, free, authoritative, easy to search. It is also the floor, not the ceiling. This guide shows how to search it, what the entries mean, and what to ALSO check that the register cannot show.

The official register

The Companies House Disqualified Officers Service is the canonical UK register. Search by individual director name or by company name. Free, no login, fully public.

Search the official register

For continuous monitoring across an entire debtor portfolio, when you need to be alerted within 24 hours of a director being added, see our debtor-monitoring service.

Search a director or company now

Type a person's name or a company name, appointments, disqualification flags, and company risk tiers from our copy of the registers. Free, no account.

How to search the register

The register accepts both individual-name and company-name searches. Best practice:

Start with the company. If you're assessing risk on a specific UK Ltd, look up the company on Companies House first to get the full list of current and recent directors. Then cross-check each director against the disqualification register.
Use exact name + date of birth. Disqualification entries include the officer's month and year of birth. UK director names are often common, “John Smith” returns many hits, so match on DOB to avoid false matches or misses.
Check historical directors too. If the company has had recent director changes, check ALL directors who have been on the board in the last 5 years, not just current ones. A historical director who joined and left within months is often a nominee arrangement worth scrutiny.

What the register shows (and how to read it)

Each entry contains a fixed set of fields. Here is what each one means and how to interpret it:

Officer name

Full legal name as recorded on Companies House. Match exactly with the company's officer record.

Date of birth (month + year)

Used to disambiguate common names. Companies House does not publish the day for privacy reasons but month + year is sufficient to distinguish two John Smiths.

Case identifier

The Insolvency Service's reference number. Useful if you need to request the underlying disqualification narrative via Freedom of Information.

Disqualified from / Disqualified until

Start and end dates. A 6-year disqualification starting in 2024 ends in 2030. After the end date, the entry remains on the register but the individual is again eligible to act as a director.

Case type

Either “Disqualification Undertaking” (the director agreed to be disqualified without contesting) or “Disqualification Order” (the court ordered it after hearing the case). Undertakings are more common (~80%) and faster.

Case reason

A short statement of the conduct that triggered disqualification. Categories include: failure to file accounts, failure to pay HMRC, transactions to defraud creditors, unfit conduct in management, breach of competition law, and from 2025 onwards, identity-verification failure.

Disqualifying authority

Usually “The Insolvency Service” (England & Wales) or the equivalent Northern Ireland / Scotland body. For Section 9A competition cases the authority is the Competition and Markets Authority.

Common grounds for disqualification (CDDA 1986)

The Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 sets out the statutory grounds. The most common in practice:

Section 6, Unfit conduct in management of insolvent company

By far the most common ground (~70% of all disqualifications). Triggered when a company enters insolvency and the Insolvency Service investigates the directors' conduct. The 2-15 year disqualification length tracks severity per Re Sevenoaks Stationers (1991).

Section 10, Failure to pay HMRC (PAYE, VAT, NIC)

Specific to tax-debt cases. The trigger is the company entering insolvency owing HMRC, where the director either deducted PAYE/NIC and failed to pay it over, or deliberately failed to file VAT returns. Typical 2-5 year bans.

Section 8, Unfit conduct following inspector report

Triggered by a Department for Business inspector report (DTI/BIS/DBT historic, now Insolvency Service). Less common, usually for material misconduct in larger companies.

Section 9A, Competition law breaches

Cartel participation, price-fixing, market-sharing. Brought by the Competition and Markets Authority. Rare but high-profile.

New 2025: ECCTA identity-verification failure

Section 1167K of the Companies Act 2006 (introduced by ECCTA 2023) allows the Secretary of State to disqualify directors who failed identity verification by the 18 November 2025 deadline. Early indications: several hundred section 1167K disqualifications in the first year.

What the register does not show

The register is authoritative for current and historical disqualifications. It is NOT a complete picture of director risk. The following are all material risk factors that the register cannot surface on its own:

Directors with multiple prior liquidations who were never disqualified. Disqualification requires the Insolvency Service to investigate. Many insolvencies produce no investigation, particularly small-creditor cases that don't reach the threshold. A director with 3-4 prior dissolved companies in 5 years is a phoenix-pattern signal regardless of whether they appear on the register.
Disqualified individuals controlling via PSC, not directorship. A disqualified director cannot legally be on the board, but they can still be a Person with Significant Control via share ownership. Companies House PSC data needs to be checked separately.
Shadow directors. Under section 251 of the Companies Act 2006, a “shadow director” is anyone whose instructions the board habitually follows. Shadow directorship is hard to prove but a known phoenix tactic, the disqualified individual operates through a nominee on the board while controlling decisions informally.
Directors who've just been gazetted but not yet disqualified. There is a lag of weeks-to-months between an Insolvency Service investigation starting and a disqualification taking effect. The Gazette publishes intent-to-disqualify notices ahead of the register update.
Network risk, disqualified individuals connected to the company. A clean current board can sit in a tightly-connected network of disqualified individuals via shared addresses, shared previous directorships, or shared PSCs. This requires graph analysis that the register itself doesn't support.

When disqualification checks matter most

A one-off register search is the right move for a single contract decision. Continuous monitoring is the right move for any of these scenarios:

·You have a portfolio of UK B2B customers where one default would materially hurt cash flow
·You are an accountant or insolvency practitioner doing pre-engagement due diligence on a client
·You are a litigation funder assessing the recovery prospects of a UK corporate defendant
·You are a UK SME owner who has been burned by a phoenix-director pattern and doesn't want to repeat the experience

Beyond the official register

RecoupIQ cross-checks every director of every UK Ltd against not just the official disqualification register, but also: their full list of prior dissolved companies, PSC connections to disqualified individuals, phoenix-pattern indicators (same address, same SIC, prior liquidation chain), ECCTA verification status, and 20+ other public-record risk signals.

Check a UK Ltd

Related guides

Section 216 Insolvency Act 1986, phoenix director law , when a disqualified-style pattern leads to personal liability.
Section 213 Insolvency Act 1986, fraudulent trading
ECCTA 2023 director identity verification
Struck-off company, same address, new Ltd, phoenix pattern signals
Company owes me money, UK action guide

Statutory sources

Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986, legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/46
Companies House Disqualified Officers Service, find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/register-of-disqualifications
Insolvency Service, disqualification guidance, gov.uk/company-director-disqualification
Companies Act 2006 s.251 (shadow directors), legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/46/section/251
Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/56
Insolvency Service Annual Report 2024-25, gov.uk/government/publications/insolvency-service-annual-report-and-accounts-2024-2025

Last reviewed: May 2026. General information for UK SME creditors and accountants. Not legal advice. RecoupIQ Ltd is registered in England & Wales (Company No. 16947526).