Is my company dormant? A five-question check

By Max Szolcek, founder of Dormant Return. Last updated 3 September 2026

Dormant is not a status you choose; it is a description of what the company did, or did not do, in a period. Companies House and HMRC each test it in their own way, and a company can pass one test and fail the other. Answer the five questions below for the financial year in question and you will have both answers.

The two definitions in one paragraph each

Companies House calls a company dormant if it has had no significant accounting transactions in the financial year. Three things are expressly not significant: filing fees paid to Companies House, penalties for late filing of accounts, and money paid for shares when the company was incorporated. Everything else that goes through the books counts.

HMRC treats a company as dormant for Corporation Tax if it has stopped trading (or never started) and has no other income, for example from investments. Trading is broad: buying, selling, renting property, advertising, employing someone or getting interest. So HMRC looks at activity and income, Companies House at transactions. Most of the time the answers agree; the questions below show where they part.

Question 1: has the company bought or sold anything, or provided a service?

Any sale, any purchase for the business, any invoice raised or paid. Buying a domain name, paying for a website, subscribing to software, taking a deposit from a customer: all of these count. So does preparing to trade, if it involves spending money.

For Companies House: yes means not dormant. A purchase or sale is a significant accounting transaction.

For HMRC: yes means not dormant. Buying, selling and advertising are all trading.

Question 2: has the company received any income, including bank interest?

Sales income is obvious. Less obvious are bank interest on the company's account, rent from a property, dividends from shares the company holds, and interest on a loan the company made to someone. The amount does not matter.

For Companies House: yes means not dormant. A credit of income is a transaction and it is not on the excluded list.

For HMRC: yes means not dormant. "No other income" is part of the definition, and getting interest is listed as trading. This is the question that catches companies that are otherwise inactive; see bank interest and dormant companies.

Question 3: has the company paid anything other than the excluded items?

The excluded items are Companies House filing fees, late-filing penalties, and money paid for shares at incorporation. Paying a Companies House fee is fine. Paying an accountant, a bank charge, a registered-office provider or a software subscription from the company's own account is a transaction. Note that a director paying such costs personally, without reimbursement, is not a company transaction at all, which is how many dormant companies stay dormant.

For Companies House: yes means not dormant. Only the three excluded payments are ignored.

For HMRC: paying a bill is not, by itself, trading or income. A company that paid a bank charge but did nothing else may still be dormant for HMRC while being active for Companies House. This is the commonest way the two answers split.

Question 4: does the company employ anyone or pay its directors?

Salary, wages, a director's fee or a dividend.

For Companies House: yes means not dormant. Paying people is a significant transaction.

For HMRC: yes means not dormant. Employing someone is trading in HMRC's list, and a dividend implies profits to distribute.

Question 5: has the company held or rented out property, or entered into contracts?

Owning a property that produces rent, letting anything out, signing a lease, or contracting to supply or buy something.

For Companies House: rent received or paid is a transaction, so yes usually means not dormant. Merely owning an asset without any transaction does not by itself create one.

For HMRC: renting property is expressly trading, and rent is income, so yes means not dormant. Signing a contract to trade in future points the same way.

Dormant for HMRC and asked for a return? Dormant Return prepares the dormant CT600 and iXBRL accounts, including a balance sheet if the company holds cash or share capital, and files them to HMRC under your own Government Gateway sign-in. Five minutes, £5, refunded automatically if HMRC rejects the return.

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What is not a problem

Having a bank account with money in it, so long as it pays no interest. Holding cash is neither a transaction nor income. See dormant company with money in the bank.
Share capital paid at incorporation, which Companies House excludes by name.
A director's loan that funds the excluded payments. Owing money to the director is not income and not trading.
Having traded in the past. Dormancy is judged period by period. A company that traded until 2022 and has done nothing since is dormant now, though its accounts will show what it still owns.

Your three possible outcomes

Outcome	Companies House	HMRC
Dormant for both (no to all five questions)	Dormant accounts and a confirmation statement each year.	Tell HMRC the company is dormant. If HMRC has sent a notice to deliver a return, or the company has filed before and HMRC still expects one, file a dormant CT600 with iXBRL accounts.
Active for Companies House, dormant for HMRC (yes only to question 3)	Ordinary accounts, usually micro-entity, and a confirmation statement. Dormant accounts are not available.	As above: dormant for Corporation Tax, so a dormant CT600 if one is due.
Not dormant (yes to any of questions 1, 2, 4 or 5)	Ordinary accounts and a confirmation statement.	A full Company Tax Return: CT600, iXBRL accounts and a tax computation, even if no tax is due.

The full picture of the two regimes, and the traps between them, is in dormant for Companies House vs dormant for Corporation Tax. Whether HMRC actually wants a return from a dormant company is answered in do dormant companies need to file a CT600?, and stopping the notices altogether is covered in how to tell HMRC your company is dormant.