Companies House Website Disclosures: What UK Law Requires on Your Site

A UK business website is not just a marketing tool. It is a legal notice board. The Companies Act 2006, the Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2008, the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 and VAT regulations each impose disclosure requirements that must be met regardless of the size of the business. Missing disclosures are one of the most common compliance gaps found on UK SMB websites, and they carry fines, Trading Standards scrutiny and consumer trust problems.

To check whether your current site carries the required disclosures, run a free scan at /uk/en/scan. The scan checks for the presence of company registration details, VAT number, contact information and a privacy notice in under two minutes.

What registered companies must display

The Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2008 apply to all companies registered at Companies House. Every such company must display the following on its website: its registered company name (as it appears on the certificate of incorporation, not a trading name alone), its registered company number, its place of registration (England and Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland), and its registered office address.

These must appear on the website itself, not only in the terms and conditions or privacy policy. The most common compliant placement is the footer, which appears on every page. Some businesses display these details only on the "About" or "Contact" page, and this position is arguable compliance at best and is frequently cited by Trading Standards as insufficient.

The obligation is not new. It derives from section 82 of the Companies Act 2006, which requires companies to display their name at every location where they carry on business and in all business correspondence. A website is a location where business is carried on. The 2008 Regulations made the specific website obligation explicit.

A company trading under a name different from its registered name must display both the trading name and the registered company name. Trading as "Bluefin Digital" while registered as "Bluefin Digital Solutions Ltd" does not exempt the site from showing the registered name and number.

E-Commerce Regulations 2002 requirements

The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 impose a separate but overlapping set of requirements on any business that provides an "information society service", which includes virtually every commercial website in the UK.

Under Regulation 6, a service provider must make the following information easily, directly and permanently accessible to service recipients and competent authorities: the name of the service provider, the geographic address at which the service provider is established, details allowing rapid contact with the service provider (including an email address), and, if the service provider is registered in a trade or similar register, the register and registration number.

"Geographic address" is the term that catches out businesses that list only a contact form or an email address. A PO box technically satisfies the geographic address requirement under the literal text of the Regulations, but the Department for Business guidance and enforcement practice make clear that a trading or registered office address is expected.

The email address requirement is separate from the postal address. Both must be present. A business that displays its address but only uses a contact form, with no email address visible on the page, does not satisfy the Regulations.

If the service provider is a member of a professional body or regulated profession, the name of that body and a reference to the applicable professional rules must also appear. This applies to solicitors, accountants, financial advisers and other regulated practitioners who operate commercial websites.

VAT number disclosure

A UK business that is VAT-registered must include its VAT registration number on its website where the website is used for commercial transactions. The obligation derives from section 60 of the VAT Act 1994 and associated VAT regulations. A business that issues VAT invoices or accepts payments through its website must display its VAT number clearly.

The footer is the standard location, alongside the company registration number. The format is "VAT registration number: GB 123 4567 89" or abbreviated "VAT No: GB 123 4567 89". HMRC expects customers to be able to verify VAT registration status, and displaying the number allows them to do so via the HMRC online checker.

Failure to display a VAT number on a transaction-based website is a civil penalty matter that HMRC can raise during a VAT inspection. The penalty is lower in severity than fraudulent VAT claims but can result in surcharges alongside any VAT compliance review.

Sole traders and business names

Sole traders and partnerships operating under a name other than the owner's full personal name fall under the business names regime in Part 41 of the Companies Act 2006 and the Business Names Regulations. The requirements are equivalent to those for companies in effect: the owner's full personal name (or, for a partnership, the full names of all partners) must appear on the website alongside the business name.

A sole trader called James Walsh trading as "Walsh Creative" must display "James Walsh trading as Walsh Creative" on the site, or at minimum display his own name clearly alongside the business name. The obligation also applies to email footers, written correspondence and the principal place of business.

Sole traders and partnerships also fall under the E-Commerce Regulations 2002 geographic address requirement. A sole trader operating from home who does not wish to display a home address can use a registered office service such as a company formation agent or virtual office, and display that address instead.

The penalties for non-disclosure under the business names regime are civil fines up to level 3 on the standard scale (currently £1,000), applied to the individual owner rather than a corporate entity.

Privacy notice and cookie banner as mandatory disclosures

While the Companies Act and E-Commerce Regulations address corporate identity disclosures, two further mandatory disclosures apply to almost every commercial website under data protection law: a privacy notice and a cookie consent mechanism.

The privacy notice is required under Article 13 of the UK GDPR and must be provided at the point of data collection. For a website, this means at minimum a linked privacy notice accessible from every page, covering the categories of data collected, the lawful basis, the retention period, the data subject rights and the contact details for the organisation.

Cookie consent under PECR Regulation 6 requires a banner that fires before any non-essential scripts load and offers a genuine choice between accepting and rejecting. The ICO's enforcement record shows that missing or inadequate cookie banners are one of the primary triggers for SMB compliance letters. See PECR cookie rules in the UK for the technical requirements.

Checking and maintaining compliance

The required disclosures are not complicated, but they are frequently out of date after a website redesign. Common gaps found during compliance reviews include: the registered office address on the site differing from the current address filed at Companies House (which changes when a company moves offices), the VAT number being on the invoice template but not the website, and the registered company number being present but the place of registration being absent.

A practical check covers five items: registered company name and number (as filed at Companies House), place of registration, registered office address (matching the current Companies House filing), VAT number (if registered) and a geographic email-and-address contact method visible without navigating through a contact form.

Trading Standards can act on disclosure failures without a prior warning. Where a business is already under investigation for a separate consumer complaint, missing company information on its website is a readily documentable additional breach that tends to expand the scope of the investigation. A business with a consumer dispute going to the Financial Ombudsman, the Furniture and Home Improvement Ombudsman or a small claims court will find that judges and ombudsmen treat absent registration details as a credibility issue regardless of the merits of the underlying dispute.

The requirement to keep the registered office address current on the website is ongoing, not a one-time setup task. Companies House filings are public and auditors, Trading Standards officers and journalists check them. If a company moves premises and updates Companies House but leaves the old address on the website, the two sources contradict each other. This creates a technical non-compliance and a practical problem: any formal correspondence sent to the website address rather than the current registered address may not reach the company, which can cause difficulties in legal proceedings.

For businesses operating across both UK and EU markets, the E-Commerce Regulations 2002 obligations overlap with equivalent EU requirements under the EU E-Commerce Directive. The substantive requirements are identical, but enforcement sits with the ICO and Trading Standards in the UK and with national Digital Services Coordinators in EU member states from 2024 onward under the Digital Services Act. See UK GDPR vs EU GDPR differences for how the regulatory frameworks interact for UK businesses with EU customers.

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This is technical analysis, not legal advice. Consult a solicitor or accountant for guidance specific to your business structure and obligations.