Your accounting reference date (ARD) is the last day of your company’s financial year. Sometimes referred to as a company’s ‘year end’, the ARD is the date your annual accounts should be made up to.
Companies House will set your first accounting reference date. It will fall on the anniversary of the last day of the month of company registration. Your ARD will be the same every year unless you choose to change it.
Below, we discuss where to find your accounting reference date, how to work out your company’s financial year, when to file your accounts, and what to do if you need to change your ARD.
Where to find your accounting reference date (ARD)
As soon as your company is incorporated (registered), Companies House will work out your accounting reference date and send it to you by email.
You will also find your ARD online by searching your company’s record via Companies House service. To do so, simply follow these steps:
- Visit Companies House service
- Enter your company name in the search bar
- Select your company from the list
- Under the ‘Overview’ tab, scroll down to ‘Accounts’
- Your ARD will be in bold text after ‘Next accounts made up to…’
The ‘due by’ date listed underneath the ARD is the deadline for filing your annual accounts at Companies House.
How to work out your company’s financial year
Your company’s financial year will begin when it is incorporated at Companies House. It will end the following year, on the last day of the month, on which the anniversary of company registration falls.
Example:
- You incorporate a company on 14 June 2025
- Your company’s first accounting reference date is 30 June 2026
The ARD will be the same yearly unless you change your company’s year end by shortening or extending its financial year.
Normally, a financial year will be exactly 12 months long. However, as you may have noticed from the above example, your company’s first financial year might span a slightly longer period. It all depends on which day of the month you set up your company.
If you don’t change your financial year, your accounts will always cover 12 months after the first year, ending on the same ARD.
What happens at the end of my company’s financial year?
After your company’s financial year ends, you must prepare annual accounts and deliver them to Companies House and HMRC by certain deadlines.
Your accounts should be made up to the accounting reference date. This means that the financial information reported in the accounts should cover the entire financial year up to and including the ARD.
However, you have the option to make up your accounts to a date up to 7 days on either side of the accounting reference date.
The filing deadline for delivering annual accounts to Companies House is:
- 21 months after the date of company registration – the first set of annual accounts
- 9 months after the ARD – annual accounts after the first year
Accounts for HMRC will be sent as part of your Company Tax Return. The filing deadline is 12 months after the end of your accounting period for Corporation Tax. This may or may not be the same 12-month period covered by your accounts.
Can I change my accounting reference date?
Changing your accounting reference date is possible by making your company’s financial year shorter or longer than 12 months – as long as your annual accounts are not already overdue.
You can only make such changes for the current financial year or the one immediately prior. Changing your ARD will also change your annual accounts filing deadline (unless you are lengthening your first financial year), and it will typically affect your accounting period for Corporation Tax.
You can shorten your financial year by any time and as often as you like. However, you may only lengthen your financial year:
- up to a maximum period of 18 months – unless the company is in administration
- no more than once in every 5 years – unless the company is in administration, you are aligning dates with a parent company or subsidiary, or you have permission from Companies House
To change your ARD, you must complete and file Companies House form AA01, either online or by post.
Alternatively, you can use Rapid Formations’ free Online Client Portal to view all of your company details, keep track of your filing deadlines, and update important information at Companies House.
So there you have it…
We hope you have found this blog interesting. lease leave a comment below if you have any questions.
If you would like to register a limited company, the best place to start is Rapid Formations homepage. There, you can check if your preferred company name is available to use.
Please note that the information provided in this article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, or professional advice. While our aim is that the content is accurate and up to date, it should not be relied upon as a substitute for tailored advice from qualified professionals. We strongly recommend that you seek independent legal and tax advice specific to your circumstances before acting on any information contained in this article. We accept no responsibility or liability for any loss or damage that may result from your reliance on the information provided in this article. Use of the information contained in this article is entirely at your own risk.
Join The Discussion