What to do if something in your SIA-approved business changes
Updated 23 June 2026
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As an SIA approved contractor, you must tell us of changes to your business. If you start providing services as a new legal entity, you must apply for approval again.
Tell us of changes to your business
You need to tell us of any significant changes to your business. This is a condition of your approval.
What you need to tell us
You must tell us of:
- a change in the name of your business
- a change in the address of your business
- a change in the legal status of your business
- a change in the size of your business
- the removal or addition of a controlling mind from your business
- any mergers, acquisitions, takeovers, or liquidations
- any insolvency or legal proceedings involving your business or its directors
You can see a full list of what you must tell us in the ‘Approval Conditions’ section of Get Approved.
When you need to tell us
You must tell us no later than 21 calendar days after the change has occurred. We prefer you to tell us of changes to your business before they occur.
How to tell us
Tell us of changes to your business using the ACS approval: Change of circumstances form. Submit your completed form using your SIA online business account. Select ‘Contact the SIA – I want to make a business enquiry’ and quote ‘ACS’.
When you need to apply for a new approval
If you start providing services as a new legal entity, your approval does not carry over. You must apply for a new approval.
This applies even if the key individuals remain the same and the new business is providing the same services as the old one.
A new legal entity might be created following a merger, takeover, acquisition, or other type of re-structuring.
The legal entity is what we approve under our Approved Contractor Scheme.
We list the name of the legal entity on our register of approved contractors. If you use a different trading name, we can include that too. We show this as ‘trading as’ or ‘t/a’.
Examples of a legal entity are:
- a limited company
- a limited liability partnership (LLP)
- a charity
- a partnership