ACSP vs GOV.UK One Login: which Companies House identity verification route should you choose?

TL;DR. GOV.UK One Login is free and takes 8 minutes if you have a chip-enabled UK passport and a UK credit footprint. An ACSP costs £15–£100+ and takes 1–3 working days. For UK-resident directors with current passports, One Login wins on every dimension except hand-holding. For overseas directors, non-standard passports, name mismatches, or anyone who's already failed once, an ACSP is the realistic route. This piece compares both honestly — including the parts where ACSPs (yes, including us) aren't worth your money.

There's surprisingly little neutral information online about which verification route to use. Most ACSPs publish content that reads like a sales pitch for ACSPs. The official GOV.UK guidance, conversely, lists both routes equally without telling you which one to actually use. This piece tries to fix that.

We're an ACSP. We have an incentive to push you toward the paid route. But charging people who'd be better off using the free service is a bad long-term business — they refund-request, they leave bad reviews, they tell colleagues we're a scam. So we'd rather be straight with you.

The short answer

Your situation	Use
UK resident, current biometric passport, recent UK credit history	One Login (free)
UK resident, no recent UK credit history (recent arrival, thin file)	ACSP
UK resident, expired passport	Renew passport first, then One Login
Overseas, passport on the GOV.UK supported list, no UK credit history	Try One Login biometric flow; ACSP if it fails
Overseas, passport not on the supported list	ACSP
Name on register doesn't match passport	Fix register first (CH01/PSC04), then either route
Already failed One Login twice	ACSP (don't keep trying One Login)
Need delivery in <24 hours	One Login (if eligible) or ACSP express tier

Read on for the reasoning behind each row.

How each route actually works

GOV.UK One Login

Open gov.uk/identity-verification-companies-house. You log in (or create a One Login account), then choose between:

Biometric flow — open the GOV.UK ID Check app, scan your passport chip, do a 30-second selfie video. Total time: about 8 minutes if everything works first try.
Document-based flow — upload photos of your ID and address proof, then answer 4–6 multiple-choice questions drawn from your UK credit file.

If you pass either flow, your Personal Code is issued within hours. You receive it by email and it appears on Companies House WebFiling within 24 hours.

Cost: £0. Companies House charges nothing for identity verification. GOV.UK One Login is centrally funded.

ACSP

You choose an ACSP from the authorised provider register, pay them their fee, and submit your documents through their secure portal. A human reviewer at the ACSP authenticates the documents, runs sanctions checks, performs a video or selfie liveness check, and submits the verification record to Companies House.

The Personal Code is issued within 1 hour of the ACSP submitting. The ACSP emails it to you and updates your Companies House WebFiling profile (depending on the ACSP).

Cost: £15–£100+ depending on provider and service tier.

The actual differences

Cost

	One Login	ACSP
Verification fee	£0	£15–£100+
Typical bundled price (with company incorporation)	n/a	£50–£150 total

Cost is the clearest difference. £0 vs £35–£45 typical. If money's a factor at all and you're eligible for One Login, it's a no-brainer.

Speed

	One Login	ACSP
Biometric flow	8 minutes start to finish	n/a
Document-based flow	15–30 minutes	n/a
Standard ACSP delivery	n/a	1–3 working days
Express ACSP delivery	n/a	Same day to 24 hours

If you need to file a Confirmation Statement tomorrow and you've forgotten about verification, One Login (when it works) is genuinely faster. Most ACSPs can't beat 24 hours.

Eligibility

This is the deciding factor for most people.

One Login requires either:

A chip-enabled passport on the GOV.UK supported list, or
A current UK credit footprint with enough data to answer KBA questions

ACSP has no such restrictions. Any UN-recognised passport, any address proof from any country, any credit history.

If you don't fit One Login's narrow window, an ACSP is your only practical option.

Failure recovery

What happens when verification fails — for the kind of reason that's not your fault?

One Login failures:

Automated, no human in the loop
Lock-out after 3 failed attempts in 24 hours
No appeal process
No guidance on what failed (you get a generic "we couldn't verify your identity" message)

ACSP failures:

A human reviewer caught the issue
You get told what went wrong (name mismatch, address proof too old, selfie too dark)
You can resubmit corrected documents same-day
The ACSP can often work around minor issues that One Login can't (e.g., applying a transliteration adjustment for non-Latin names)

If you have any unusual situation — recent name change, non-standard ID, address discrepancy — an ACSP's human review is genuinely valuable.

Support during the process

One Login: a help page, no email, no phone. If you're stuck, you're stuck.

ACSP: depends entirely on the provider. Premium ACSPs have email + phone support and respond within hours. Cheap ACSPs sometimes have ticket-only support with 48-hour SLAs. Check before paying.

Liability for errors

One Login: you're responsible for the accuracy of what you submit. If you make a mistake, you fix it.

ACSP: the ACSP is responsible for verification accuracy. If they make a mistake (verify the wrong person, accept a fraudulent ID), Companies House can sanction them, and you have recourse against the ACSP under the standard regulated-service consumer protections. In practice this matters very rarely, but if you ever fall into a dispute about who's verified, the ACSP route gives you someone to call.

Privacy and data handling

One Login: data handled by HM Government under the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR. Strong protections, low audit visibility.

ACSP: data handled by a private firm under UK GDPR, with additional Companies House oversight as part of the ACSP authorisation. Some ACSPs publish detailed retention policies (typically 7 years for compliance reasons); others are vague.

If data minimisation matters to you (e.g., you don't want your passport scan held by a private firm for 7 years), One Login is the cleaner choice.

When an ACSP is genuinely worth the money

Even at our most honest, here's when paying makes sense:

1. You can't use One Login

The largest cohort. If your passport isn't supported and you don't have a UK credit footprint, you have no free option. An ACSP is your only route.

2. You've already failed One Login

If you've burned through your 3 attempts and don't know why, paying an ACSP to get it right is faster than waiting 24 hours and guessing again. The ACSP can tell you what failed — that's the value.

3. You have an edge case

Recent name change, common name with sanctions false-positive history, gender marker mismatch, jointly-held address proof, very recent arrival in the UK — all of these benefit from a human reviewer who can apply judgment.

4. You're filing a Confirmation Statement and you forgot

The CS01 must be filed within 14 days of the due date. If you realised on day 13 that you don't have a Personal Code, an ACSP express tier delivers in 24 hours and costs £45–£100. One Login is faster if it works, but you can't risk it if you've never tried before — a failure means a missed deadline and a Section 853A offence (more on that in the deadline guide).

5. You want the work delegated

If you genuinely don't want to think about it, paying £35 for someone else to handle the whole process is a legitimate trade-off. Time has value.

When an ACSP is not worth the money

Equally honest:

1. You have a current biometric UK passport and a UK credit footprint

One Login takes 8 minutes and costs zero pounds. There is no functional difference in the output. You're paying for hand-holding you don't need.

2. You're being upsold "premium" packages

Some ACSPs bundle verification with company secretary services, registered office services, and "compliance monitoring" at £150–£500. If all you need is a Personal Code, you do not need the bundle. The Personal Code alone is enough.

3. The ACSP charges more than £60 for a standard application

The actual cost of running an ACSP verification is around £8–£15 (sanctions API, document API, reviewer time). The market rate of £35–£45 is a reasonable margin. Anything above £60 is paying for brand, hand-holding, or unnecessary bundles. Sometimes that's worth it; usually it isn't.

4. The ACSP refuses to tell you what's included

Vague pricing pages, "starting from" prices, hidden expedite fees — walk away. A legitimate ACSP publishes its fees and tells you exactly what you're getting before you pay.

5. The ACSP isn't on the official register

This is the deal-breaker. If they're not on the Companies House ACSP register, they cannot verify your identity for Companies House. They might be running a scam, or they might be a legitimate firm that hasn't yet been authorised — either way, they can't deliver what you're paying for. Always check the register before paying any provider.

The decision flow, one more time

START
  │
  ▼
Do you have a current biometric passport
  on the GOV.UK supported list?
  │       │
  │ YES   │ NO
  │       │
  │       ▼
  │   Use ACSP (this is your only route)
  │
  ▼
Do you have a UK credit history (mortgage,
  current account, credit card, 12+ months)?
  │       │
  │ YES   │ NO
  │       │
  ▼       ▼
Use     Try One Login biometric flow first.
One     If it fails, use ACSP.
Login

That's it. Two questions decide the route for 90% of people.

The brutal honest summary

We make money when you use an ACSP. So you'd expect us to argue that ACSPs are better.

But the truth is: GOV.UK One Login is a genuinely good service for the people it works for. If you can use it, use it. We'd rather earn your trust by being honest than earn £35 from someone who didn't need to pay.

We'd love your business if One Login doesn't work for you. Otherwise, save your money and bookmark us for next time.

Sources and references

Still not sure which route is right for you?

If you're on the fence, here's the simplest test: try GOV.UK One Login first. It's free. If it works, you're done. If it doesn't, the failure tells you whether you need an ACSP.

If you already know you need an ACSP, see our pricing.