UK startup compliance process: a founder's guide for 2026

TL;DR:

UK startups must complete multiple registration steps with Companies House, HMRC, and the ICO before trading to avoid penalties. Sector-specific approvals, such as FCA or CQC registration, can take months and require early planning. Proper legal and compliance documents, along with ongoing monitoring, ensure growth without costly enforcement issues.

Before your company trades a single pound, you must register with Companies House, notify HMRC for Corporation Tax (within three months of starting to trade), register for PAYE if you are employing anyone, take basic data-protection steps with the ICO, and secure any sector-specific authorisation your business requires. Miss any of these and you are not just disorganised — you are exposed to penalties, director liability, and in some sectors, criminal sanction.

Before you trade: your immediate actions

Register your limited company with Companies House (online, same day, from £50 via GOV.UK).
Identify your PSC(s) (persons with significant control) and record them in the PSC register — mandatory under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023.
Notify HMRC for Corporation Tax within three months of starting to trade.
Register for PAYE before your first payroll run if you are taking on employees or paying yourself a salary.
Register for VAT if your taxable turnover will exceed the current threshold, or consider voluntary registration.
Pay the ICO data-protection fee and begin documenting your data-processing activities under UK GDPR.
Check sector-specific requirements — if you are in fintech, healthcare, food, gambling, or crypto, you likely need FCA authorisation, CQC registration, or another regulator’s sign-off before you launch.

Who does what? The founder handles the company registration and opens the business bank account. Your accountant (or an outsourced provider such as Priceandaccountants) manages HMRC registrations, VAT, PAYE set-up and SEIS/EIS compliance. A solicitor drafts your shareholder agreement, IP assignments, and employment contracts. Everything else — payroll, pension auto-enrolment, ongoing filings — belongs on a recurring calendar, not a one-off to-do list.

What does the startup compliance process in the UK actually look like, step by step?

The compliance process is not a single event. It runs in four phases: incorporation, the first 30 days, the first three months, and the first 12 months. Each phase has distinct tasks, owners, and documents.

Phase 1: Incorporation (day one)

Choose your legal structure. Most funded startups incorporate as a private limited company. Setting up as a formal business covers the differences between sole trader, LLP, and limited company — the choice affects tax, liability, and investor eligibility.
Register with Companies House. File your memorandum and articles of association, choose a registered office address, select SIC codes, and identify your directors and PSCs. Registration takes a few hours online.
Set up your PSC register. Under ECTA 2023, PSC identity verification is now a formal requirement. Record full name, date of birth, nationality, and the nature of control for every PSC.
Open a business bank account. Most banks require your certificate of incorporation and proof of directors’ identity.

Phase 2: First 30 days

Notify HMRC of Corporation Tax liability. You have three months from the date you start trading, but registering immediately avoids the risk of forgetting.
Register for PAYE if you are employing staff or paying a director’s salary. Set up your payroll software for Real Time Information (RTI) submissions.
Assess VAT position. If turnover will exceed the registration threshold, register immediately. Voluntary registration is worth considering even below the threshold if your customers are VAT-registered businesses.
Draft and sign your shareholder/co-founder agreement. Do not leave this until a dispute arises.
Execute IP assignments. Any intellectual property created before incorporation must be formally assigned to the company.

Phase 3: First three months

Register with the ICO and pay the data-protection fee. Document your processing activities and assess whether any activities require a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA).
Put employment contracts in place for all staff, including restrictive covenants and IP clauses.
Set up auto-enrolment for eligible employees (staging date depends on your payroll start date).
Apply for SEIS/EIS advance assurance from HMRC if you are raising investment — early application avoids delays at the point of closing a round.

Phase 4: First 12 months

File your first confirmation statement with Companies House (due within 12 months of incorporation).
Prepare and file your first annual accounts (due nine months after your accounting reference date for a private company).
Submit Corporation Tax return (CT600) within 12 months of the end of your accounting period.
Review and update your data-protection records, privacy notice, and any DPIAs for new products.
Conduct a compliance review — check PSC records, board minutes, shareholder register, and employment contracts are current.

Compliance timing table

TaskDeadlineOwnerCompany registration (Companies House)Day oneFounder / formation agentPSC register completedDay oneFounder / solicitorCorporation Tax notification (HMRC)Within 3 months of tradingAccountantPAYE registrationBefore first payroll runAccountant / payroll providerVAT registration (if applicable)Before threshold is exceededAccountantICO registration and data-protection feeWithin first 3 monthsFounder / data-protection leadShareholder/co-founder agreement signedWithin 30 daysSolicitorIP assignments executedWithin 30 daysSolicitorSEIS/EIS advance assurance applicationBefore closing investment roundAccountantFirst confirmation statementWithin 12 months of incorporationAccountant / founderFirst annual accounts filed9 months after accounting reference dateAccountantCT600 filed12 months after accounting period endAccountant

Co-working space table with compliance materials

Documents checklist. Prepare these before or immediately after incorporation: memorandum and articles of association, PSC statements, shareholder/co-founder agreement, IP assignment deeds, employment contracts (with IP and restrictive covenant clauses), director service agreements, data-processing records (Article 30 GDPR register), and board minutes for all key decisions.

Infographic illustrating startup compliance timeline with key steps

Pro Tip: Download the GOV.UK model articles as a starting point, but have a solicitor review them before you file — the default articles do not include drag-along rights, pre-emption clauses, or vesting provisions that investors will expect.

Which sectors change the compliance picture materially?

For most tech startups, the checklist above covers the core. But certain sectors layer on additional authorisation, anti-money laundering (AML), or safety obligations that can take months to satisfy and cannot be retrofitted after launch.

Fintech and financial services. If your product involves payment processing, lending, investment advice, insurance, or any activity that falls under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, you need FCA authorisation before you operate. The Money Laundering Regulations 2017 also apply to many fintech and crypto businesses, requiring you to appoint a Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO), implement customer due diligence (CDD) procedures, and maintain transaction records. Crypto-asset businesses must register with the FCA under the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds Regulations. The FCA’s regulatory sandbox (discussed in a later section) offers a route to test products under supervised conditions before full authorisation.

Healthcare and medical devices. Regulated healthcare providers must register with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) before delivering services. Medical device manufacturers face MHRA registration requirements. Neither can be deferred — operating without registration is a criminal offence.

Food and beverage. Food businesses must register with their local authority at least 28 days before opening. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) sets hygiene and labelling rules; certain products (supplements, novel foods) require additional approvals.

Gambling. Any business offering gambling services to UK consumers needs a licence from the Gambling Commission. The application process is lengthy and detailed; plan for at least six months.

Legal services. Providing reserved legal activities without authorisation from the Solicitors Regulation Authority or another approved regulator is a criminal offence. Legal tech products that stray into advice territory need careful scoping.

Estate agency. Estate agents must register with HMRC under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 and comply with AML obligations including CDD.

When to pause and get specialist advice. If your product touches any of the above sectors, pause product development before launch and commission a regulatory gap assessment. The red flags that should trigger immediate specialist counsel are: handling client money, processing sensitive personal data at scale, providing advice that could be construed as regulated, or operating in a sector where a competitor has recently faced enforcement action.

Practical next steps for regulated sectors:

Map your product features against the relevant regulatory perimeter (FCA Perimeter Guidance Manual, CQC registration categories, FSA novel food list).
Engage the relevant regulator early — most publish pre-application guidance and welcome informal contact.
Prepare a regulatory submission document: business model summary, consumer safeguards, AML/CDD procedures, and evidence of management competence.
For UK business compliance essentials in tech and fintech specifically, sector-specific obligations interact with data-protection and employment law in ways that generic checklists miss.

What legal documents does your startup need first?

Legal office setup with documents and filing cabinet

Getting the legal architecture right at formation costs a fraction of what it costs to fix later. Investors conducting due diligence will scrutinise every document listed below; gaps discovered at Series A regularly delay or kill rounds.

Priority order for legal documents:

Memorandum and articles of association. Filed at incorporation. The articles govern how the company is run, how shares are transferred, and how decisions are made. Default model articles are fine for a solo founder but inadequate for a co-founded or investor-backed business.
Shareholder/co-founder agreement. Covers vesting schedules, good/bad leaver provisions, drag-along and tag-along rights, pre-emption on share transfers, and deadlock resolution. This is the single document most founders regret not having in place early.
IP assignment deeds. Any code, design, or invention created by founders before incorporation must be assigned to the company. Without this, the company does not own its own product.
Employment contracts. Must include IP assignment clauses, confidentiality obligations, and post-termination restrictive covenants. Generic templates downloaded from the internet frequently omit the IP clause entirely.
Director service agreements. Separate from employment contracts; cover notice periods, duties, and remuneration for executive directors.
Board minutes and members’ resolutions. Every significant decision (share allotments, director appointments, bank mandates, material contracts) must be recorded. Investors and auditors will ask for these.

Common template pitfalls

Off-the-shelf templates are a reasonable starting point, but they routinely cause problems in three areas. First, vesting: many templates use cliff-and-vest schedules that do not reflect UK market norms or HMRC’s EMI option rules. Second, IP assignment: US-origin templates often use US jurisdiction clauses and miss the specific requirements of UK employment law for pre-incorporation IP. Third, dispute resolution: generic templates default to arbitration clauses that are expensive and slow for a startup dispute; English courts are often faster and cheaper.

What to change immediately (before you sign anything): jurisdiction clause (must be England and Wales), IP assignment scope (must cover pre-incorporation work), vesting schedule (align with any HMRC EMI option grant), and dispute resolution mechanism. What can wait until fundraising: drag-along thresholds, anti-dilution provisions, and information rights.

Governance under ECTA 2026

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 introduced identity verification requirements for persons with significant control and changes to Companies House filing obligations. PSC records must be accurate and current; filing a false PSC statement is a criminal offence. Board meeting cadence matters too: hold formal board meetings at least quarterly, keep minutes for every meeting, and store them at your registered office or a SAIL address notified to Companies House.

Pro Tip: Appoint a company secretary (even informally) from day one. The role is optional for private companies, but having one person responsible for filing deadlines, PSC records, and board minutes prevents the “nobody checked” failures that generate most Companies House late-filing penalties.

Tax registrations and accounting essentials for your first 12 months

Tax compliance for a UK startup is less complicated than founders fear, but the deadlines are unforgiving and the consequences of missing them compound quickly.

HMRC registrations

Corporation Tax registration must happen within three months of starting to trade. HMRC will then issue a Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) and set your accounting period. Your CT600 return is due 12 months after the end of that period, but the tax itself is due nine months and one day after the period ends — a distinction that catches many first-time founders.

PAYE registration is required before you run your first payroll. RTI (Real Time Information) submissions must be made to HMRC on or before each payday. Late RTI submissions attract automatic penalties.

VAT registration is mandatory once taxable turnover exceeds the current threshold in any rolling 12-month period. Voluntary registration below the threshold makes sense if your customers are VAT-registered (you reclaim input VAT) and if you want to appear more established. The downside is the administrative burden of quarterly VAT returns and Making Tax Digital (MTD) compliance.

Making Tax Digital

MTD for VAT is already mandatory for all VAT-registered businesses. MTD for Income Tax Self Assessment (ITSA) is being phased in for sole traders and landlords from April 2026. For limited companies, MTD for Corporation Tax is still in consultation. The practical implication now: use MTD-compatible software from day one. Xero integrates directly with HMRC’s MTD APIs and is the platform Priceandaccountants uses for client bookkeeping and tax compliance workflows.

Payroll essentials

Auto-enrolment applies from the first day you employ an eligible worker (aged 22–66, earning above the earnings trigger). You must enrol eligible employees into a qualifying pension scheme and make employer contributions. The Pensions Regulator enforces this; non-compliance fines escalate daily.

R&D tax credits and SEIS/EIS

If your startup is developing new technology, processes, or software, you may be eligible for R&D tax relief. The merged R&D scheme (effective for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2024) consolidates the previous SME and RDEC schemes. Claims require detailed technical and financial records — start keeping them from day one, not retrospectively.

SEIS and EIS are the most tax-efficient ways to raise early-stage equity in the UK. SEIS compliance requires a compliance statement (SEIS1) submitted to HMRC after shares are issued, plus records demonstrating the qualifying trade and how funds were spent over three years post-investment. Plan your share structure before you raise — issuing shares in the wrong order or at the wrong price can disqualify investors from relief.

Tax and accounting obligations at a glance

ObligationRegistration / filing deadlineOwnerCorporation Tax registrationWithin 3 months of tradingAccountantPAYE registrationBefore first payroll runAccountant / payroll providerVAT registrationBefore threshold exceededAccountantRTI payroll submissionsOn or before each paydayPayroll providerAuto-enrolment pension set-upFrom first eligible employeeAccountant / pension providerVAT returns (MTD)QuarterlyAccountantCT600 and accounts12 months after period endAccountantR&D tax credit claimWithin 2 years of period endAccountantSEIS1 compliance statementAfter shares issuedAccountant

Where Priceandaccountants adds the most value: R&D claims require technical narratives that satisfy HMRC’s post-April 2023 additional information requirements; SEIS/EIS compliance requires share-structure planning that most generalist accountants miss; and ongoing tax planning for UK startups directly affects how much runway you retain between funding rounds.

How do you build compliance into daily operations?

Compliance that lives only in a spreadsheet or a solicitor’s filing cabinet will fail. The founders who avoid enforcement problems are the ones who make compliance a routine, not a crisis response.

Policies every startup needs

Privacy policy and internal data-protection policy: covers how you collect, store, and process personal data under UK GDPR.
Acceptable use policy: governs how employees use company systems, particularly relevant for remote and hybrid teams.
Whistleblowing policy: required for employers with 250+ employees under the Public Interest Disclosure Act, but good practice from day one.
Information security policy: sets minimum standards for device management, password controls, and data access — critical if you handle customer data or are seeking ISO 27001 or Cyber Essentials certification.

Roles and responsibilities

Every startup needs someone accountable for compliance, even if that person wears several hats. Directors carry personal liability for many compliance failures — late filings, PAYE errors, and data breaches can all result in personal liability or disqualification. Appoint a data-protection lead (who may also be the MLRO if AML applies) and make their responsibilities explicit in their job description or service agreement.

For payroll, pension administration, and tax filings, outsourcing to a specialist provider is almost always more cost-effective than hiring in-house at the early stage. Priceandaccountants handles all of these as part of its recurring service packages, which means founders get professional-grade compliance without the overhead of a full finance team.

Compliance calendar: recurring tasks

Monthly: bank reconciliation, RTI payroll submission, review of outstanding invoices and accounts receivable.
Quarterly: VAT return (MTD), board meeting and minutes, PSC register review.
Annually: confirmation statement (Companies House), annual accounts, CT600, R&D claim review, data-protection audit, employment contract review.
Ad hoc: DPIA for any new product feature that processes personal data at scale or in a new way; AML/CDD review when onboarding high-risk customers.

Pro Tip: Run a five-minute PSC check every quarter. The most common Companies House enforcement action against early-stage startups is an inaccurate or outdated PSC register. It takes minutes to verify and costs nothing to fix proactively.

Remote and hybrid working

Remote and hybrid working introduces specific compliance considerations that many founders overlook. Under UK employment law, you must carry out a display screen equipment (DSE) assessment for home workers. Data security policies must cover personal devices if employees use them for work (a BYOD policy). GDPR obligations apply regardless of where data is processed — a team member working from a café in Berlin is still processing data under UK GDPR if they are employed by a UK company.

When should you engage regulators, and how does the FCA sandbox work?

Most startups can complete their compliance set-up without ever speaking to a regulator directly. But there are specific triggers that require formal engagement, and getting the timing wrong is expensive.

Which regulator for which activity

Companies House: formation, PSC registration, annual filings, and any changes to directors or share structure. All filings are made via GOV.UK; no direct contact is usually needed.
HMRC: Corporation Tax, PAYE, VAT, SEIS/EIS advance assurance, and R&D claims. HMRC has dedicated helplines and an online portal; for SEIS/EIS, written advance assurance applications are submitted by post or email.
ICO: data-protection fee registration, DPIA submissions for high-risk processing, and breach notifications (mandatory within 72 hours of becoming aware of a qualifying breach). The ICO’s self-assessment tools are genuinely useful for early-stage startups.
FCA: required for any regulated financial services activity. The FCA’s authorisation process involves a detailed application, a fit-and-proper assessment of directors, and a review of your compliance systems. Allow six to twelve months for a standard application.
CQC / FSA / Gambling Commission: sector-specific; engage as early as possible, as lead times for registration and licensing are long.

How the FCA regulatory sandbox works

The FCA sandbox allows firms to test innovations under modified rules with regulatory oversight, reducing uncertainty for high-risk products while preserving consumer safeguards. Participation is time-limited and does not replace full authorisation, but it gives firms a supervised environment to validate their compliance approach before committing to the full application process.

Eligibility: your product must be genuinely innovative, offer consumer benefit, and be ready for live testing. The FCA publishes cohort application windows; check the FCA Innovation Hub for current dates.

Benefits: direct access to FCA supervisors, the ability to test under modified rules, and a clearer path to full authorisation based on real operating data.

How it differs from full authorisation: sandbox participation is temporary and scoped to specific test parameters. You cannot operate commercially at scale under sandbox conditions alone.

Preparing for a regulator meeting

Prepare a one-page business model summary covering your product, target customers, and revenue model.
Document your consumer safeguards: how you protect customer data, handle complaints, and manage conflicts of interest.
Bring evidence of your AML/CDD procedures if relevant.
Record every decision and commitment made in the meeting in writing, and follow up with a confirmation email.
Assign a named compliance contact within your team for ongoing regulator correspondence.

Advance assurance for SEIS/EIS is a separate but related process: submit a written application to HMRC’s Small Company Enterprise Centre before issuing shares, and HMRC will confirm (non-bindingly) that your company and proposed share issue appear to qualify. This gives investors confidence before they commit.

What should you budget for compliance in the first year?

Compliance costs in the first year are predictable if you plan for them. The surprises come when founders underestimate lead times and then pay premium rates for urgent work.

Typical timeline and cost drivers

ItemTypical lead timeIndicative cost rangeCompany formation (Companies House)Same day£50–£100 (DIY via GOV.UK)Business bank account opening1–4 weeksFree to £20/monthHMRC registrations (CT, PAYE, VAT)2–4 weeks for UTR/VAT numberIncluded in accountancy packageShareholder/co-founder agreement1–3 weeks (solicitor-drafted)£1,500–£3,000Employment contracts (standard)1 week£500–£1,000 per setICO registrationSame day online£40 per yearFCA authorisation (full)6–12 months£5,000+ in advisory feesFCA sandbox application3–6 monthsAdvisory fees varySEIS/EIS advance assurance4–8 weeksIncluded in accountancy packageAuto-enrolment pension set-up1–2 weeks£200–£400 (one-off set-up)Accountancy package (ongoing)Immediate£300–£1,000/month depending on scope

Costs vary significantly by complexity and provider. The figures above are indicative ranges, not guarantees.

Where to save and where to spend

Save money on company formation (DIY via GOV.UK is perfectly adequate for a straightforward limited company) and on ICO registration (the online process takes ten minutes). Use standardised but solicitor-reviewed templates for employment contracts rather than bespoke drafting for each hire.

Spend on your shareholder agreement. A poorly drafted agreement discovered at Series A can cost ten times the original legal fee to unpick. Spend on specialist regulatory advice if you are in a regulated sector — the FCA application process is not something to attempt without a compliance consultant who has done it before.

Pro Tip: Ask your accountant to include SEIS/EIS advance assurance in your onboarding scope. The application is straightforward for an experienced adviser and the cost is negligible compared to the tax relief it unlocks for your investors. Founders who apply after closing a round sometimes find they cannot retrospectively qualify.

What happens if you get compliance wrong?

Non-compliance is not a theoretical risk. Companies House, HMRC, the ICO, and the FCA all have active enforcement programmes, and early-stage startups are not exempt.

Enforcement routes and typical consequences

Companies House: late confirmation statements and accounts trigger automatic financial penalties. Persistent failure leads to compulsory strike-off, which dissolves the company and vests its assets in the Crown. Directors of struck-off companies can face personal liability for debts incurred after the strike-off date.
HMRC: late Corporation Tax returns attract automatic penalties starting at £100, escalating with time. Late PAYE/RTI submissions generate per-submission penalties. VAT errors can trigger penalties of up to 30% of the unpaid tax, plus interest.
ICO: under UK GDPR, the ICO can issue fines of up to £17.5 million or 4% of global annual turnover (whichever is higher) for serious breaches. For early-stage startups, enforcement notices and public reprimands are more common than maximum fines, but the reputational damage from an ICO enforcement notice can be severe.
FCA: operating a regulated activity without authorisation is a criminal offence carrying up to two years’ imprisonment and an unlimited fine. The FCA also publishes enforcement decisions publicly, which can permanently damage a founder’s ability to work in financial services.
Director disqualification: directors who allow a company to trade while insolvent, file false documents, or persistently breach filing obligations can be disqualified from acting as a director for up to 15 years under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986.

Immediate remediation checklist

If you discover a compliance gap or breach, act in this order:

Stop the activity that is causing or worsening the breach, where possible.
Retain an adviser (accountant, solicitor, or compliance consultant) immediately — do not attempt to self-remediate a regulatory breach without professional guidance.
Assess the scope: what data, transactions, or filings are affected, and over what period?
Notify the relevant regulator where mandatory notification applies (ICO within 72 hours for qualifying data breaches; FCA for material regulatory failures).
Prepare a remediation plan with specific actions, owners, and deadlines.
Communicate with affected stakeholders (customers, investors, employees) as appropriate and as advised by your solicitor.
Document everything: regulators treat documented, proactive remediation as a significant mitigating factor when determining penalties.

Early voluntary disclosure consistently results in lower penalties across all UK regulatory regimes. The ICO’s own guidance confirms that organisations that self-report and cooperate receive materially more favourable outcomes than those where breaches are discovered through complaints or third-party reports.

Key takeaways

Getting the startup compliance process right in the UK requires acting on company registration, HMRC notifications, data-protection steps, and sector-specific authorisations before you trade, not after your first problem arises.

PointDetailsRegister before you tradeCompanies House registration, HMRC Corporation Tax notification, and ICO data-protection fee must all be in place before trading begins.PSC records are a legal obligationUnder ECTA 2023, PSC identity verification is mandatory; an inaccurate register is a criminal offence, not just an administrative error.Sector-specific rules can take monthsFCA authorisation, CQC registration, and Gambling Commission licences have lead times of six months or more — start the process before you build the product.Use a compliance calendarMonthly bank reconciliations, quarterly VAT returns and PSC checks, and annual accounts filings prevent the compounding penalties that catch most early-stage founders.Priceandaccountants as your compliance partnerPriceandaccountants handles HMRC registrations, SEIS/EIS compliance, R&D claims, and ongoing filings for UK tech and fintech startups, with extensive combined expertise.

The compliance mistake most founders make is a timing problem, not a knowledge problem

Most founders who end up with compliance problems are not ignorant of the rules. They know they need a shareholder agreement. They know they should register for VAT. They know they need to sort out PAYE. The problem is that they treat compliance as something to do once the product is built, the team is hired, and the first customers are signed. By that point, the window for doing things cleanly has often closed.

The shareholder agreement that was not signed in month one becomes a negotiation between co-founders who now have different ideas about equity. The IP assignment that was not executed before incorporation means the company does not legally own its own codebase when a VC’s lawyers come looking. The SEIS advance assurance that was not applied for before the round closes means investors cannot claim their relief. None of these are complicated problems to prevent. They are all timing problems.

The other thing worth saying plainly: the compliance burden for a UK startup is genuinely manageable. Companies House registration takes a few hours. HMRC registrations take a few weeks. ICO registration takes ten minutes online. The documents that matter most — shareholder agreement, IP assignments, employment contracts — cost a few thousand pounds to get right with a solicitor. For a business raising even a modest seed round, that is not a significant cost relative to the risk it eliminates.

Where founders genuinely need specialist help is in regulated sectors (FCA, CQC, Gambling Commission) and in tax structuring (SEIS/EIS, R&D claims, share option schemes). These are areas where the rules are complex, the stakes are high, and the cost of getting it wrong is not just a penalty — it is a lost funding round or a criminal investigation. That is where experienced advisers pay for themselves many times over.

The compliance process is not a barrier to building a great company. Treated as a foundation rather than a formality, it is what makes the company fundable, scalable, and defensible.

How Priceandaccountants helps UK startups get compliance right from day one

Founders who have worked through the checklist above know what needs doing. The harder question is who does it, and how quickly. Priceandaccountants is the specialist accounting and compliance partner for UK tech and fintech startups — not a generalist firm that handles startups as a side line, but a team that has guided over 20 companies through the full startup compliance process, several of which are now valued at well over £50m.

The services most relevant to founders reading this guide: company set-up and Companies House filings, HMRC registrations (Corporation Tax, PAYE, VAT), SEIS/EIS advance assurance and compliance statements, R&D tax credit claims, payroll and auto-enrolment pension management, outsourced finance director services, and ongoing strategic tax planning and advisory as you scale from pre-seed to Series A.

Before you get in touch, gather the following: your certificate of incorporation (or your intended company structure if not yet incorporated), a draft cap table or shareholder list, any existing shareholder agreement or term sheet, your latest payroll summary if you are already employing, and a brief description of your product and sector. The more context you provide upfront, the faster the initial compliance review moves.

To request your initial compliance review, contact Priceandaccountants directly via the website. The review covers your current compliance position, identifies gaps, and sets out a prioritised action plan — so you leave knowing exactly what needs to be done and in what order.

Useful sources for further reading

The sources below are listed in the order a founder should read them, from formation through to funding compliance.

Company formation and PSC requirements: Set up a limited company: step by step (GOV.UK) — the authoritative guide to incorporation, registered office, SIC codes, and PSC identification.
Business structure choice: Setting up as a formal business (Business.gov.uk) — covers sole trader, LLP, and limited company differences.
HMRC registrations and tax: Set up a business (GOV.UK) — covers registration, tax implications, and record-keeping obligations.
ECTA 2023 and PSC verification: Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (legislation.gov.uk) — the primary legislation on PSC identity verification and Companies House filing changes.
Data protection and UK GDPR: ICO guidance — covers registration, records of processing, and DPIA requirements.
FCA authorisation and sandbox: Regulatory sandboxes: what businesses can expect (GOV.UK) — explains sandbox eligibility, benefits, and the difference from full authorisation.
SEIS compliance: Apply to use the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (GOV.UK) — covers the SEIS1 compliance statement, qualifying conditions, and record-keeping requirements.
Business support helpline: GOV.UK Business Support Helpline — free government advice for businesses on regulations, tax, and licensing.

This article is general information for UK founders and does not constitute legal, tax, or regulatory advice. Confirm current rules and thresholds with the relevant primary source or a qualified professional before acting on your specific situation.