PSC register
The PSC register is the record of people with significant control (PSCs) of a UK company, UK Societas, limited liability partnership, or eligible Scottish partnership. A PSC is someone who owns or controls the entity and is often described as a beneficial owner. Companies House guidance treats PSC information as a core transparency filing that must be identified, confirmed, and kept current.
How the PSC register is used on bank desks
For UK-incorporated borrowers, sponsors, and guarantors, the PSC register is a primary public source of beneficial ownership data in KYC and customer due diligence. Export finance, project finance, and CRE teams use filed natures of control to corroborate ultimate beneficial owner conclusions and to understand voting and appointment rights that sit behind the legal share register. The filing is not a credit opinion; it is an ownership and control disclosure that feeds financial-crime and related-party analysis.
FATF Recommendation 24, strengthened in March 2022, requires a multi-pronged approach in which companies obtain and hold adequate, accurate and up-to-date beneficial ownership information, and that information is also held by a public authority or body functioning as a beneficial ownership registry, or through an alternative mechanism giving competent authorities efficient access. The UK PSC regime is one national implementation of that registry model.
What the PSC register records
A person is usually a PSC if they meet one or more "nature of control" conditions, including:
- more than 25% of shares or voting rights
- the right to appoint or remove a majority of directors
- significant influence or control over the company, or over a trust or firm that meets a control condition
Where share or voting thresholds apply, filings use bands: over 25% up to and including 50%; more than 50% and less than 75%; and 75% or more. Confirmed particulars include name, date of birth, nationality, country of residence, service address, usual residential address (not disclosed publicly), the date control began, and all applicable natures of control.
Since 6 April 2016 most companies and LLPs have been required to collect PSC information and file it with Companies House. Following the changes that took effect on 18 November 2025, PSC information for in-scope entities is held centrally at Companies House rather than on separate local registers, and PSCs must complete identity verification and hold a Companies House personal code. Changes to PSC information must be notified within 14 days of being confirmed. If there is no PSC, the entity must file a statement to that effect.
Distinctions
A PSC filing identifies control under UK company law thresholds. It may not capture every person who is a UBO under a bank's internal or FATF-aligned look-through, especially where control is exercised through offshore layers or informal arrangements. Corporate identity keys such as the Legal Entity Identifier help reconcile the UK company to group structures, and ownership chains that run through an SPV still need natural-person control analysis on top of the register entry.