Change your company's year end

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

You can only do this for your company’s current financial year or the one immediately before it.

Changing your company’s year end will also change your deadline for filing accounts, unless you’re lengthening your company’s first financial year.

The rules on changing your financial year end

You can shorten your company’s financial year as many times as you like - the minimum period you can shorten it by is 1 day.

You can lengthen your company’s financial year:

  • to a maximum of 18 months, or longer if your company’s in administration
  • once every 5 years

You can only lengthen the financial year more often than every 5 years if:

  • the company is in administration
  • you’re aligning dates with a subsidiary or parent company
  • you have special permission from Companies House

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

Apply online

Use the Companies House online service.

Apply by post

Download and fill in the application form and send it to the address on the form.

Changing your company’s Corporation Tax accounting period

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

You must update your accounting period dates with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) if you’ve shortened or lengthened your financial year.

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