Change your company’s year end

Business: Limited Company

    You can change your company year end (also known as its ‘accounting reference date’) to make your company’’s financial year run for more or less than 12 months.

    The rules on changing your financial year end

    You can shorten your company’s financial year as many times as you like.

    You can lengthen your company’s financial year:

    • to a maximum of 18 months
    • only once every 5 years (unless the company is in administration or you’re aligning dates with a subsidiary or parent company)

    You can’t change your company’s year end when its accounts are overdue.

    How to change the year end date

    Use Companies House WebFiling service. or download and complete the application form. The address to send it to is on the form.

    Download ‘Change of accounting reference date’ (PDF, 740KB)

    Changing your company’s Corporation Tax accounting period

    Changing your company’s year end at Companies House will normally affect your company’s accounting period for Corporation Tax.

    If you’ve made your financial year less than 12 months, you can tell HM Revenue & Customs when you send your Company Tax Return for that shorter period.

    If you lengthen your company’s financial year to more than 12 months, you’ll need to make 2 Company Tax Returns – one for 12 months and the other for the rest of your company’s extended financial year

    Your company’s financial year can be from 9 to 18 months long – find out how to change it