Statutory Reporting and the 2028 Companies House Changes

Mandatory software-only filing applies to annual accounts filed on or after 1 April 2028. This was confirmed by the government in June 2026, after the original 'periods beginning on or after 1 January 2027' timetable was paused. From that point, accounts must be filed in iXBRL format using commercial software, and the existing web and paper filing routes for accounts are being withdrawn.

It is the filing date that matters, not the accounting period. Any accounts filed on or after 1 April 2028 are in scope, whatever period they cover. So a group that files early can get a clear run at it: with a September year end and accounts filed by the following February, the first set caught is the year ended 30 September 2028, filed in early 2029, while the 2027 accounts sit outside the mandate only because they are filed before April 2028. As long as you hold to your usual timetable, you can plan the transition rather than be caught out by it.

Every set of statutory accounts will need to be prepared and tagged in iXBRL and submitted through approved software. For a group with a handful of UK entities that is manageable. For groups with ten, fifty, or a hundred entities, manual tagging scales badly, so most are moving to a structured, template-driven process that produces tagged accounts natively.

The taxonomy is the same, but the scope is not. Companies House uses the same FRC taxonomy suite that HMRC already requires, so the tags themselves are familiar and full iXBRL tagging has been the baseline for some years. What changes is how much has to be tagged and how it is filed: the accounts must be submitted to Companies House through commercial software, and the tagging is expected to cover the full accounts as filed rather than the limited set HMRC asks for today. Financial institutions should also note there are some sector-specific tags to apply as part of an implementation.

Not necessarily, and this is where groups most often underestimate the work. HMRC's tagging requirement is limited: broadly the individual company accounts, with only minimal tagging of the group or consolidated elements. Companies House filing is expected to require the full accounts as filed to be tagged, so for a group preparing consolidated accounts this is a materially larger exercise than you do today. Full tagging of group statutory accounts can be substantial, and it is an area we have considerable experience in.

Possibly, but check one thing carefully: whether it can file to Companies House, not just tag. From 1 April 2028 accounts must be submitted through commercial filing software. A tool that only produces a compliant iXBRL file, with no route to submit it to Companies House, is not sufficient on its own; it would simply be generating a file for you to file another way. The cleaner position is a platform that covers the full path, prepare, tag, then file to both Companies House and HMRC from the same output. The right choice depends on how many entities you file for and how much you want to standardise and automate.

Yes, and it is worth planning for. Today many groups file at Companies House first and tag afterwards for HMRC. Once the mandate applies, the Companies House submission itself must be the tagged iXBRL, filed through software, so tagging moves ahead of filing rather than after it. The upside is that you tag once and file both Companies House and HMRC from the same output, rather than running them as two separate exercises.

No. From 1 April 2028, the paper and web filing routes for annual accounts are being withdrawn. Accounts must be filed in iXBRL format through commercial software. Some other Companies House submissions are unaffected, but for statutory accounts, software filing becomes the only route.

No single product is mandatory; the requirement is iXBRL filing via software. But for multi-entity groups, a templated platform such as ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting (OSR) is a natural fit because it produces consistent, tagged accounts across many entities from a single configuration. If you already run ONESOURCE Corporate Tax there is a further benefit: corporate tax and statutory reporting can work from the same trial balance, and OSR tags the accounts natively, which removes a separate tagging cost. Getting the templates and chart of accounts mappings right on a cloud migration is what makes that integration work, something we cover in our note on ONESOURCE Corporate Tax cloud migration. We implement OSR where it fits, and are happy to tell you honestly if a lighter approach would serve you better.

It depends on the number of entities, the GAAPs in scope, and how well-organised your chart of accounts is. A focused implementation for a group with a clear COA can be delivered in a couple of months; more complex groups should start scoping well ahead of the 2028 deadline rather than leaving it late. In practice, procurement is often the slowest part to clear: on the OSR projects we have run, getting started has usually taken longer than expected because of it, which is another reason to begin early.

Work back from your first in-scope filing, not from April 2028 itself. Identify the first set of accounts you will file on or after 1 April 2028, then work backwards: allow time to be live and tested before that filing, a couple of months for a focused implementation (longer for complex groups or several GAAPs), and, realistically, several months for procurement, which usually takes longest. For many groups that puts the sensible time to start within the next year, not in 2028. A December year end is tighter than it looks: the accounts for the year ended 31 December 2027 are due at Companies House by the end of September 2028, so they are already in scope. There is also a market factor that is easy to overlook: because every UK group is working to the same deadline, demand for experienced statutory reporting and iXBRL implementation resource is likely to peak as 2028 approaches, and that capacity is finite. Moving early is as much about securing the right people while they are available as it is about the technical work. Our readiness checklist walks through this same work-backwards logic.

Yes. Statutory reporting, or statutory accounts production, is what many UK teams call accounts production: preparing the annual statutory accounts. What changes in 2028 is how they are filed, in iXBRL through commercial software, so a template-driven accounts production process that tags natively is the practical way to be ready.

The headline is confirmed: from 1 April 2028, annual accounts must be filed through commercial software in iXBRL format, and the web and paper routes are being withdrawn. What Companies House has not yet published is the detailed iXBRL specification, so the finer points, including the exact tagging scope, reflect the clear direction of travel and our implementation experience rather than final published guidance. We track this closely and update our advice as the detail is confirmed.