Verifying for Companies House from Egypt
You do not have to come to the UK, and you do not have to hold a British passport. But plenty of valid Egyptian passports have no chip in them, and the free GOV.UK app works by reading the chip. That is the part worth settling first.
Overseas Verify · Last updated 11 September 2026
Your Egyptian passport may well not have a chip
We went looking for the date Egypt began issuing passports with a chip, and could not find one. Egypt’s own embassy describes the current passport as machine-readable, which is not the same thing, and no newer Egyptian series appears in the European register of travel documents. Some websites state confidently that Egypt has issued chipped passports since 2008. We found nothing to support that, so we would rather you looked at your own cover than take anyone’s word for it, ours included.
So the passport in your hand today may well have no chip in it. If it does not, the GOV.UK app cannot read it, and the Post Office route needs a UK address and you there in person. That is the gap an authorised agent fills. Check yours first, because if it does have a chip the free route is open to you.
This is not our reading of the rules. GOV.UK's own guidance to the services using One Login says that people who are not British citizens and live overseas can only prove their identity with the app, and will also need a chipped passport. Read what GOV.UK tells its own services
Why we will not give you a date for Egypt
What we checked, so you can weigh it yourself. A forensic document vendor stated in June 2024 that no electronic Egyptian passport exists yet. Egypt joined the international key directory in 2019, which signals an intention rather than an issued document, and several countries have sat in that directory for years before issuing anything. Egyptian passports run seven years. Together that is enough for us to say a chip is unlikely, and not enough for us to print a date, so we have printed no date. If you want certainty in the next two minutes, look at the foot of your own front cover for a small gold rectangle.
What actually stops people
Three things, none of them your nationality. The chip is the first, and it is what this page is about. The second is the phone: the GOV.UK app needs an iPhone 8 or newer on iOS 16.7 or later, or Android 10 or later, and many cheaper Android phones cannot read a chip at all whatever version they run, because they have no reader in them. The third is the address step, which is where most of the difficulty in our own work sits. If any of the three stops you, that is when an authorised agent is worth paying for.
Your documents can stay as they are
Nothing needs translating before you send it. Most of the proof-of-address documents we assess are not in English, and any translation needed is arranged at our end at no extra cost. A bank statement is the usual one. Download it as a PDF rather than photographing your banking app, and copy the address into the form exactly as the bank prints it.
Your deadline is not in November
The date people remember, 18 November 2026, is about the end of the transition period and Companies House says plainly it is not a deadline. What matters is your company’s next confirmation statement, and for most companies that falls earlier. The statement cannot be filed until every director named on it has verified, so one unverified director holds up the whole company.
We already work with Egyptian companies
Launchese looks after hundreds of companies with a Egypt address. Support is in English, and every case is reviewed by a person rather than passed or failed automatically.
If the free route does not work for you
We verify people of any nationality, living anywhere, and file your personal code with Companies House. A person reviews every case. If we cannot verify you, you are not charged.
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