Guidance · updated 20th August 2026
Which 14 day PSC window applies, and to whom
There is no single national date for PSCs. There are two rules, they produce completely different dates, and which one applies to a person depends on whether that person is also a director of the same company.
The two rules
| The person is | The 14 day window | Companies House worked example |
|---|---|---|
| A PSC and also a director of that company | The 14 days beginning the day after the company’s confirmation statement date | Confirmation statement date of 31st March 2026 gives a PSC window of 1st to 14th April 2026 |
| A PSC but not a director | The first 14 days of that person’s birth month | A birthday on 24th February gives a window of 1st to 14th February |
| Added to the register as a PSC on or after 18th November 2025 | 14 days from the date of being added to the register | A new incorporation or a share reshuffle starts the clock on the day it is filed |
Why this is harder than it looks
Read on its own, each rule is simple. Put a client book behind it and three problems appear at once.
The dates do not cluster
Confirmation statement dates are spread across all twelve months, because they follow incorporation dates. Birth months are spread across all twelve months, because people are born throughout the year. Across two hundred client companies you are not managing a deadline, you are managing a calendar with something on it most weeks of the year.
You may not hold the trigger data
Confirmation statement dates are on the public register and can be pulled. Birth months are a different matter. A practice will often hold a date of birth in its own client records, but not in a form that has ever been used to drive a compliance calendar, and a PSC who is not a director may not be a client of the practice at all.
Nothing tells you when it is done
Knowing the window is only half of it. The other half is knowing whether the person actually acted inside it, and that has to be checked against the register rather than assumed. That check is the part that gets skipped in a busy month, and it is the only part that matters.
The compounding problem. Where a person is both director and PSC, the trigger is the confirmation statement date, which comes round every year. So does the window. This is not a task with an end date. It is a recurring obligation attached to a recurring filing.
A practical order of work for a practice
- Pull every client company number into one list. Public data, no consent needed.
- For each company, pull officers, PSCs and the confirmation statement date from the public register.
- Split the PSC population into two groups: also a director, and not a director.
- For group one, set the window from the confirmation statement date. For group two, you need the birth month.
- Check the register for whether the code has actually been recorded against the PSC role. Do not trust a status field to tell you this.
- Chase the ones who have not acted, and check again the following week.
- Sweep for new incorporations and appointments monthly, because each one starts a fresh clock.
Steps one to four are a project. Steps five to seven are a job that never finishes, and that is the reason most practices end up with a spreadsheet that was accurate in the month somebody built it.
What we do and do not do. Director Filing Desk is not an Authorised Corporate Service Provider, an accountancy firm, a filing agent or a company secretary. We do not carry out identity checks and we never will. We watch a list of company numbers on behalf of accountancy practices, spot what is due, and chase the people who have not acted. Nothing here is legal or tax advice. Always confirm the current position at GOV.UK.
What we do with this
We run steps two, five, six and seven every week on behalf of the practice, under the practice’s own brand, and report movement monthly. The free status report is steps one to four done once, on your book, so you can see the size of it before deciding anything.
Related
Written 20th August 2026 and checked against Companies House and GOV.UK guidance on the same date. Guidance in this area is subject to change, so always confirm the current position on GOV.UK before acting.