Limited companies and LLP’s now need to identify who their persons with significant control are. These PSC’s must then be entered onto the business’s own PSC register and also notified to Companies House. For the vast majority of businesses with very typical simple structures this will be a very straight forward process.

For a private limited company (Ltd) with one class of ordinary voting shares in issue, typically any shareholder that holds 25% or more of the company shares will be a PSC or person with significant control. The company already records this information on the register of members so it just needs to be entered onto the PSC register and notified to Companies House when filing a ‘confirmation statement’. Any shareholder with less than 25% shares is not usually a PSC unless they have some other ‘nature of control’.

For a typical limited liability partnership (LLP) where all members are designated and are natural people (not corporate members) then each member will be a PSC. This assumes each member has equal control and rights to profit share and there are not more than 4 members. For example, a typical LLP will have just two designated members that have equal control so both have 50% control and are both therefore PSC’s. Their data is already recorded in the register of members so just needs to be added to the PSC register and notified to Companies House when filing the next ‘confirmation statement’.