Verifying for Companies House from Nigeria
You do not have to come to the UK, and you do not have to hold a British passport. The part most Nigerian directors worry about, whether their passport is good enough, is almost certainly not their problem. Something else usually is.
Overseas Verify · Last updated 11 September 2026
Your Nigerian passport almost certainly has a chip
Nigeria has issued passports carrying a chip since December 2007, and since 2011 only electronic ones. A Nigerian passport runs for five or ten years, so even the oldest book we could accept was issued years after the change.
Every Nigerian passport we could work with today was issued after the switch. So the chip is not your obstacle, and the free GOV.UK app is very likely open to you. Try it before you pay anyone, including us.
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
2007
Biometric only
2012
Last chipless expires
Today
All have a chip
Why a Nigerian passport is a straightforward case
Nigeria went further than most countries: from 1 January 2011 only holders of an electronic passport could travel at all, so the older books left circulation quickly instead of running quietly to their expiry dates. A second generation arrived in March 2019. Nigerian books run for five or ten years. One honest note. The Nigeria Immigration Service calls the document electronic and biometric on its own pages and never uses the word chip, so our reading rests on independent document references rather than on Abuja's own wording.
What stops people, and it is not your passport
Two things, and neither is your nationality or your passport. The first 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 second is the address step, which is where most of the difficulty in our own work sits. Your passport is not the obstacle here, so try the free route first and come to us only if it turns you away.
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.
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.
Start my verification