For any new business owner in the UK, one of the most significant and exciting procedural moves is to have the business registered officially. When you register a business, your new company, which may still be at a fledgling stage, gets legally certified. Since you can start up a new company as a self-employed person, or with a partner or a limited company, the most important choice which will have to make while registering a business is whether you want to register as a sole trader or a Limited company.
The process of registering a business has become fairly easy in modern times. Previously, people who wanted to start a new company were required to file several paper forms, had to wait for weeks for approval, and pay a considerably high amount for registration.
However, in present times, you can register a business easily and affordably, either by getting a few online formalities completed by your solicitor or accountant, or by completing the business registration formalities on your own. Moreover, you can also get your business registered via a postal application, by paying an amount of £40 by cheque, in favour of ‘Companies House.’ The process of registration of business by post takes nearly 10 days.
In comparison to registration of a business by post, online registration of a business is a much speedier process which you can avail if your company is limited by shares and also uses standard articles of association. When you apply online, your business generally gets registered within one day. The cost of online business registration process is £12, which has to be paid via a debit card, a credit card or a Paypal account.
Furthermore, for registering your business, you can also avail the services of an agent or use third-party software. In case you want your company based in some other country to be registered in the UK, you will have to seek registration as an overseas company. In such a situation, you can seek professional advice from UK Trade and Investment.
Generally speaking, some of the basic requirements for registering a business in UK are:
- Selection of a legal structure for your business
- Developing and filing ‘Articles of Incorporation’ based on the selected legal structure
- Writing agreement for operating the business and/or bylaws for governing your internal business operations
- Filing for business registration with the appropriate local and/or state government agency.
Once you have all the requirements in place, you can register a business and get a ‘Certificate of Incorporation.’ The certification that you get upon registering your business confirms the legal existence of your company. In addition, it also unfolds details like the name of the company, its registered address, and the date on which it came into existence. The certificate also has to be shown to the bank authorities when you open a bank account for the company that you have set up and registered. Overall, after you complete all the formalities of the business registration process, your business can mostly start running within a few working days!