Verifying for Companies House from Sri Lanka
You do not have to come to the UK, and you do not have to hold a British passport. But plenty of valid Sri Lankan 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 Sri Lankan passport may well not have a chip
Sri Lanka has not started either. The law needed to bring in a biometric passport was still going through Parliament in August 2026, after eight years of delays, and passports without a chip are still being issued today on ten-year validity. So a Sri Lankan passport has no chip in it, including one issued this week.
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
Where the Sri Lankan confusion comes from
Sri Lanka has photographed and fingerprinted passport applicants since 2015, and that is routinely mistaken for a chip in the passport. They are not the same thing. Reference sites state that Sri Lanka has issued biometric passports since January 2025; the sources they cite are announcements of intent from 2024, not evidence that anything was issued. As of August 2026 the law needed to bring one in had only just been cleared by Cabinet to go to Parliament, and in September 2025 the department ordered 1.1 million more chipless booklets to bridge the gap. On ten-year validity, one issued this week runs to about 2036.
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.
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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