Quick Summary
For a small or medium sized limited company, year end accounts in 2026 usually cost between £500 and £1,500 plus VAT, covering the statutory accounts and the CT600 corporation tax return filed together. Dormant companies sit lower, at roughly £150 to £400. Complex companies with multiple directors, leases or a bookkeeping backlog run to £1,500–£3,500 or more. The single biggest reason two quotes for the “same” job can differ by £1,000 is not the accountant’s greed. It is which accounting standard your company files under, and how tidy your records are when the work starts.
How much does an accountant charge in the UK? This is perhaps one of the most Googled questions in the industry, with no simple answers. The truth is that there are no simple anwers. And costs vary depending on a number of factos. Two similar companies, with almost near-identical numbers, can be quoted year end accounts fees that differ by more than £1,000. Neither accountant is overcharging.
The clarity, or the lack of, doesn’t stop there. Most firms will not commit those numbers to writing without a sales call first. This guide sets out to give the most comprehensive view of this question. What UK businesses actually pay for year end accounts in 2026, the specific factors that push a fee up or down, and the practical steps a director can take to keep the bill at the bottom of the range rather than the top.
| Statistic | Figure |
|---|---|
| Active companies on Companies House | 5.6+ million |
| New incorporations annually | ~850,000 |
| Micro-entities | Over 95% of UK companies |
| SMEs in the UK economy | 99.8% of all businesses |
What does year end accounts actually mean
Many business owners pay for two separate obligations without realising they are distinct pieces of work.
The first is the statutory accounts: a balance sheet, a profit and loss account, and the notes that go with them. Every active limited company has to prepare these and file them at Companies House once a year, and they have to meet UK accounting standards. Miss the deadline and the penalty is automatic.
The second is the company tax return, the CT600, which goes to HMRC and sets out the corporation tax due on the company’s profits. It draws on the same underlying figures, but it is a separate document with its own deadline. Since the joint HMRC and Companies House filing service (CATO) closed on 31 March 2026, these two now have to be filed separately, with the tax return going through commercial software. That change alone caught out a fair number of directors who were used to the old combined route.
When a firm quotes for “year end accounts”, it is worth checking the price covers both. Some firms present the accounts and the CT600 as two line items, and a headline figure that looks cheap can quietly leave the tax return out.
| Requirement | Deadline |
|---|---|
| Annual Accounts | 9 months after year-end |
| Corporation Tax Payment | 9 months + 1 day |
| CT600 | 12 months after year-end |
| Confirmation Statement | Every 12 months |
The deadlines that sit behind the work
Statutory accounts are due at Companies House nine months after the company’s year end. The CT600 is due at HMRC twelve months after year end, though the corporation tax itself has to be paid nine months and one day after year end. That ordering catches people out: the money is due before the return.
Year end accounts cost by business type in 2026
The figures below reflect what UK businesses pay this year, drawn from published price lists across the market and current practice.
| Business Type | Typical Fee (2026) |
|---|---|
| Dormant company | £150–£400 |
| Sole trader Self Assessment | £150–£350 |
| Small limited company | £500–£1,500 |
| Complex limited company | £1,500–£3,500 |
| Outsourced finance function | £300–£2,000/month |
Sole traders and freelancers
A sole trader does not file statutory accounts or a CT600, so strictly speaking there are no “year end accounts” in the company sense. The equivalent obligation is a Self Assessment return, and the pricing for that runs:
- Simple Self Assessment return: £150–£350 as a one-off. One trade, straightforward expenses, no complications.
- More involved return: £350–£600 where there is rental income, capital gains, foreign income or several income sources stacked together.
- Bookkeeping plus return through the year: £60–£150 a month, for records kept current rather than reconstructed each January.
According to HMRC, the VAT registration threshold remains £90,000, meaning thousands of growing sole traders begin to incur additional compliance costs each year.
Small limited companies
This is the heart of the market and where the title question really lands. A typical company with one or two directors and clean records should expect:
- Year end accounts and CT600 only: £500–£1,500 plus VAT as a standalone job.
- Compliance-only monthly package: £100–£180 a month, which spreads the year end work and the confirmation statement across twelve payments.
- Fuller monthly package: £150–£300 a month once bookkeeping, VAT returns and director payroll are folded in.
The range between the £500–£1,500 band is not coincidence, and the next section explains exactly what pushes a company up or down the price limits.
Growing companies past £250,000 turnover
Once a company crosses roughly £250,000, usually with employees and more than one revenue line, the relationship changes. Year end work stops being a standalone once-a-year event and folds into a monthly service:
- £300–£800 a month for full compliance plus quarterly management accounts.
- £800–£2,000 a month where the company needs outsourced finance functions such as forecasting, board packs or a part-time finance director.
Traditional high-street firms in London and larger cities will quote £2,000–£3,500 for year end accounts alone at this level, particularly where the numbers are technical.
| Service | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| Compliance only | £100–£180 |
| Compliance + VAT | £150–£300 |
| Finance function | £300–£800 |
| Virtual FD | £800–£2,000 |
Dormant companies
A company that has not traded still has to file. Dormant accounts plus the associated CT600 usually cost £150–£400, and some firms hold this at a flat rate because the work is predictable.
What actually impacts the price for year end accounts
Five things explain nearly all the variations that impact the price of year end accounts. Four of them are at least partly within a director’s control.
1. The accounting standard: FRS 105 versus FRS 102 Section 1A
This is the factor almost no generic “accountant cost” article mentions, and it is the main reason quotes diverge.
| Feature | FRS 105 | FRS 102 Section 1A |
|---|---|---|
| Eligible entities | Micro | Small companies |
| Disclosure | Minimal | More extensive |
| Complexity | Low | Medium |
| Typical fee | From ~£595 | From ~£795 |
| Suitable for lenders | Rarely | Often preferred |
Small companies in the UK file under one of two standards. FRS 105 is the micro-entity standard. A company qualifies if it meets at least two of three conditions: turnover no more than £632,000, balance sheet total no more than £316,000, and no more than ten employees. The accounts are shorter, the disclosures are minimal, and the work is lighter. So the fee is lower, often around £595 as a starting point.
FRS 102 Section 1A is the small company standard, for companies that do not qualify as micro-entities or choose not to use FRS 105. Some directors pick 1A deliberately because a lender or investor wants fuller information. The accounts carry more detail and more disclosure, the work takes longer, and the fee starts higher, commonly from around £795.
Complexity inside FRS 102 1A varies a lot. A single-director consultancy with clean Xero records sits at the bottom. Add directors’ loan accounts, hire purchase agreements, intercompany transactions, or several shareholders on different arrangements, and the fee can more than double, into £1,495-and-up territory.
Companies House confirmed in January 2026 that the small company accounts reforms once pencilled in for April 2027 have been paused and remain under review. So for now, micro-entities keep the micro-entity framework and small companies can still file abridged accounts. The direction of travel toward software-only filing has not changed, but the timetable has slipped.
2. The quality of the bookkeeping
This is the most common reason a bill comes in higher than the quote. Where records are incomplete, disorganised, or cover more than one unfiled year, the time to put them right gets added on. A bookkeeping catch-up bolt-on often starts around £295 plus VAT for two bank accounts and roughly a thousand transactions across the year, and climbs from there.
Reconciling monthly, or at the very least quarterly, is the single most effective thing a business owner can do to keep the fee at the bottom of the range. An accountant reviewing tidy books is doing a review. An accountant facing a shoebox is doing a rescue, and rescues cost more.
| Records Provided | Estimated Extra Cost |
|---|---|
| Fully reconciled | £0 |
| Minor corrections | £150–£300 |
| Backlog bookkeeping | £300–£1,000+ |
3. How is the company structured
Multiple directors, directors’ loans, hire purchase, lease accounting under FRS 102, intercompany balances, mixed holding-and-trading setups. Any of these puts a company in the mid-to-upper part of the range whichever firm handles the work, because they genuinely take more time and more technical judgement.
4. VAT and payroll
A VAT-registered company adds quarterly filing on top of the year end job, usually priced separately at £30–£60 a month. Running payroll for directors and staff brings monthly RTI submissions, pension auto-enrolment, P60s at year end and a P11D cycle for benefits in kind. None of that is “year end accounts” as such, but it all feeds the total cost of keeping the company compliant, so it belongs in any like-for-like comparison.
| Additional Service | Typical Cost |
|---|---|
| VAT Returns | £30–£60/month |
| Payroll | £20–£80/month |
| Auto Enrolment | £100–£300/year |
5. Where the firm located and how it works
London and the South East run roughly 15–25% above the national average. Online-first firms flatten that geographic gap because they operate at scale, which is part of why their headline packages start lower.
What should be included in the fee, and what should not
For a standard year end engagement, the fee should cover the statutory accounts, the CT600, Companies House filing, and usually an annual review call. That is the complete job for the accounts themselves.
Several things are almost always separate, and knowing this stops a business owner comparing two quotes that are not the same product:
- Director’s Self Assessment (SA100). A personal return, excluded from company year end packages by default. A straightforward one starts around £150 plus VAT; more income sources push it up.
- Bookkeeping. Every quote assumes reconciled records. Where they need work, that is quoted on its own.
- Capital gains computations. If the company or a director personally disposed of an asset, a CGT calculation is priced separately, often from around £195 per disposal.
- Audit. A distinct service, needed only by larger companies or where a lender or investor insists. Never bundled into a standard package.
- HMRC enquiry support. If HMRC opens an enquiry, that falls outside the year end scope and is billed by the hour or by a separate fixed quote.
Fixed fee or hourly: what to check before signing
Most well-run firms now price year end work as a fixed fee. The cost is known before the work starts, there are no time-based surprises, and the incentive sits with the accountant to be efficient rather than slow.
Hourly billing still exists, mostly at larger and more traditional practices, with rates from roughly £75 to £250 an hour depending on who does the work. For a simple small company the job might run four to fifteen hours; for a complex one, considerably more. Hourly makes sense for genuinely unpredictable work such as an HMRC enquiry, a restructuring or a one-off R&D claim. For recurring year end compliance, a fixed fee is the safer choice.
Five questions worth putting to any firm before engaging them:
- Is this a fixed fee, and what would trigger an extra charge?
- Does it include the CT600 and Companies House filing, or are those separate?
- Is the director’s Self Assessment in scope or billed on its own?
- What happens if the records need work once you start?
- Who will the client actually deal with day to day?
The answers reveal more about the real cost than the headline figure does.
What missing the year end deadline will costs businesses
The reason year end accounts are worth doing properly is that the penalties for getting them wrong now bite harder than they used to.
Companies House late filing penalties for a private company run on a fixed ladder: £150 up to one month late, £375 for one to three months, £750 for three to six months, and £1,500 beyond six months. File late two years running and every figure on that ladder doubles, so a repeat six-month delay becomes a £3,000 charge.
Late filing costs
| Failure | Penalty |
|---|---|
| Companies House (<1 month) | £150 |
| 1–3 months | £375 |
| 3–6 months | £750 |
| Over 6 months | £1,500 |
| Repeat offence | Double |
| Late CT600 | £200 |
| Over 3 months | Additional £200 |
| 6 months | 10% tax penalty |
| 12 months | Additional 10% |
Separately, and this is the change that matters most this year, the fixed penalty for a late CT600 doubled from £100 to £200 on 1 April 2026, the first increase since the late 1990s. A further £200 applies once the return passes three months. On top of that sit tax-geared penalties of 10% of unpaid corporation tax at six months, and another 10% at twelve months.
The two regimes are entirely separate. Companies House and HMRC do not share filing data, so one missed year end can land a director with penalties from both at once. And none of these fines are deductible against corporation tax, so the real cost is the full sticker price. Against that backdrop, a £900 year end fee that keeps a company inside both deadlines is cheap insurance.
Two other 2026 changes are worth noting at the planning stage: Companies House fees rose on 1 February 2026, with the annual confirmation statement now £50 online, and identity verification for directors and people with significant control is now mandatory, with the transition period closing in November 2026.
How to keep a year end bill low
Almost every factor for keeping the year end bill low is in the control of the business owner.
- Keep the bookkeeping current. Monthly or quarterly reconciliation turns year end into a review rather than a reconstruction. The company spends less, files earlier, and knows its tax position through the year instead of finding out in the ninth month.
- Use cloud software with bank feeds. Xero, QuickBooks and FreeAgent all pull transactions in automatically and let the accountant see the books in real time. Less manual entry means less time billed and fewer things missed.
- Send information when it is asked for. When an accountant requests bank statements or details of a transaction, a quick reply keeps the job inside the normal workflow rather than turning it into a rushed scramble against a Companies House deadline. Late information is a line item in most firms’ terms for good reason.
- Ask before acting, not after. A fixed-fee relationship usually covers a quick question. A director about to buy an asset, pay a dividend or change the company’s structure often saves an expensive clean-up later with a two-minute conversation first.
Frequently Asked Questions
For a straightforward limited company, year end accounts including the CT600 and Companies House filing typically cost £500–£1,500 plus VAT in 2026. Where a company lands in that band depends mainly on whether it files under FRS 105 or FRS 102 Section 1A, and how clean its records are. Dormant companies are cheaper, usually £150–£400.
No. A director’s Self Assessment return (SA100) is a separate engagement and is excluded from standard year end packages by default. A simple one starts around £150 plus VAT, more where there are dividends, rental income, capital gains or foreign income to report.
FRS 105 is the micro-entity standard, broadly for companies under £632,000 turnover, under £316,000 on the balance sheet and fewer than ten employees. It needs less disclosure, so it costs less to prepare. FRS 102 1A is the small company standard, with fuller accounts and more disclosure, which is why it costs more. The standard that applies is the biggest single driver of the fee.
Statutory accounts are due at Companies House nine months after the company’s year end. The CT600 is due at HMRC twelve months after year end, but the corporation tax itself is payable nine months and one day after year end. Since 31 March 2026 the accounts and the tax return must be filed separately, as the old joint CATO service has closed.
Yes. Fees for preparing company accounts and the tax return are an allowable business expense, so they reduce taxable profit. At a corporation tax rate of 19% to 25%, the effective cost of the fee is lower than the sticker price. Late filing penalties, by contrast, are not deductible.
A sole trader with simple affairs can reasonably file their own Self Assessment. For a limited company it is rarely worth it. Between Companies House filing, the CT600, the correct accounting standard, VAT and payroll, the compliance load is high enough that something usually slips, and one automatic penalty can wipe out any saving.
