Is this company legit?
Start with the official register. Type the company name or number and see its status, age, filing record, insolvency history and directors, free and without signing up.
The short answer. Being registered at Companies House proves a company exists. It does not prove it is honest, solvent or insured. The seven checks below take about ten minutes together and cover the things registration does not.
Seven checks, in the order worth doing them
- 1
Find the company number, then check it exists
Every UK limited company must show its registered name and company number on its website, invoices, letters and order forms. That is company law, not etiquette. Search the number at Companies House or in the box on this page. If a firm calling itself Ltd cannot produce a number, that is the answer to your question.
- 2
Check the registered name matches the trading name
Trading names are legal and common: a firm can register as ABC Holdings Ltd and trade as Smith Roofing. What matters is that the two are connected and that the company number belongs to the entity you are actually paying. A registered name that has nothing to do with the brand, and an address on the other side of the country, is worth asking about.
- 3
Look at the age and the filing record
A company incorporated three weeks ago is not automatically a scam, but it has no track record, and neither does the review page it links to. Overdue accounts or an overdue confirmation statement are a legal breach and the earliest visible sign of a company that has stopped bothering, or stopped being able to pay.
- 4
Check the directors, not just the company
A brand new company looks clean because it has no history. The people behind it do. Search their names and see what happened to their other companies. Several dissolutions with debts, or a company that failed weeks before this one was formed, is the pattern worth finding before you pay.
- 5
Verify the VAT number if they quote one
HMRC runs a free check-a-VAT-number service. A number that does not validate, or validates to a different business, is a serious mismatch. Note that not being VAT registered is perfectly normal for a small firm below the threshold, so the absence of a number proves nothing on its own.
- 6
Test the contact details yourself
Phone the landline. Look up the address on a map. A mobile number, a webmail address and a virtual office is a perfectly normal setup for a legitimate small business, so treat these as questions rather than verdicts, but a company that cannot be reached by any route except a messaging app is a company you cannot chase.
- 7
Choose a payment method that gives you a route back
Paying part of the cost by credit card, where the cash price is over £100 and no more than £30,000, gives you a claim against the card issuer under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act if the goods or work never arrive. A bank transfer to a new payee gives you none of that protection up front, which is exactly why it is the method fraudsters ask for.
Things that should slow you down
None of these proves anything on its own. Several of them together is a pattern, and the pattern is the point.
- ▲Pressure to pay today for a discount that expires tonight
- ▲A request to pay a different account name from the company you are dealing with
- ▲A limited company that will not give you its company number
- ▲An address that turns out to be a residential flat with fifty other companies registered at it, when the firm claims to be a large operation
- ▲Reviews that all arrived in the same week, in the same voice, with no detail
- ▲A quote with no written scope, no dates and no terms
- ▲A brand new company using photographs of work it will not tell you the address of
Search the directors
Find the people behind the company and every other firm they have been appointed to.
Search tribunal decisions
See whether the employer has published employment tribunal judgments against it.
Search HSE enforcement
Health and safety convictions and enforcement notices, by company name.
What a full report adds
Every source we use, and exactly how the 0 to 100 score is calculated.
Questions people ask
How do I check if a company is legitimate for free?
Search its company number or name on Companies House, or in the box on this page, which reads the same official register. That gives you the status, the incorporation date, the registered office, whether the accounts or confirmation statement are overdue, whether there is an insolvency history, and who the directors are. All of it is free and none of it needs an account.
Does being registered at Companies House mean a company is legitimate?
No, and this is the single most common misunderstanding. Registering a company costs a small fee and takes a few minutes, and Companies House does not verify what most of the filing says. Registration tells you the company exists as a legal entity. It does not tell you that the company is honest, solvent, insured or competent. What the register is genuinely good for is the history: how long it has existed, whether it files on time, whether it has been through insolvency, and what its directors have done elsewhere.
How can I tell if a company is a scam?
There is rarely one giveaway. What there usually is, is a stack of small things that only make sense together: a company formed very recently, a trading name that does not match anything registered, a director whose previous companies collapsed, pressure to transfer money quickly, and a payment method with no protection. Any one of those has an innocent explanation. Three of them together is a reason to stop.
What if the business is a sole trader?
Sole traders and ordinary partnerships do not register at Companies House at all, so there is no company record, no directors and no filing history to look at. That is not suspicious in itself, it is how most small trades operate. Check what does exist instead: the trade registers that apply to their work, their insurance certificate and the insurer's authorisation on the FCA register, and their VAT number if they quote one.
I have already paid. What can I do?
Contact your bank immediately and say you believe you have been scammed. Since 7 October 2024, banks and payment firms must reimburse most victims of authorised push payment fraud, where you were tricked into sending money, up to a maximum of £85,000 for Faster Payments and CHAPS. Individual firms can choose to pay more, and if you lost more than the cap you can take the case to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Report it to Action Fraud, or to Police Scotland on 101 if you are in Scotland. If you paid by credit card, raise a section 75 claim with the card issuer as well.
Is a company with a virtual office address a scam?
No. Registered office services are legal, widely used, and often just an accountant's address. It becomes information when it contradicts what the firm is telling you: a builder claiming a large yard and workforce, registered above a shop three hundred miles away, is worth a question.
General information, not legal or financial advice. Reimbursement rules for authorised push payment fraud are set by the Payment Systems Regulator and applied by your bank; the £85,000 maximum applies to Faster Payments and CHAPS from 7 October 2024, and firms may choose to pay more.