Companies House Data Guide · 28 February 2026 · 8 min read

Companies House Alerts: How to Monitor New Directors, Address Changes, and Filings

If you rely on UK company information for risk, compliance, or B2B prospecting, the question isn’t “can I look up a company at Companies House?” — it’s how do I get notified when something changes?

This guide shows practical ways to monitor changes such as:

New director appointments and resignations
PSC (person with significant control) changes
Registered office address changes
Accounts filed, confirmation statements, and other filings
Status changes (active, dissolved, liquidation, etc.)

Why this matters: company changes can be a signal — a growth moment (new director), a risk moment (late accounts), or a trigger for outreach (new address / new ownership).

What "Companies House alerts" actually means

Companies House doesn’t provide a single “alert centre” for every type of change. In practice, monitoring usually falls into three buckets:

Manual watchlists (you check periodically)
Email alerts (where available via third-party tools or integrated services)
API-based monitoring (you build a light workflow that polls and detects changes)

If you only monitor a handful of companies, a manual approach is fine. If you monitor hundreds or thousands (suppliers, customers, competitors, target accounts), you’ll want a process that scales.

Step 1: Decide which changes you care about

Different teams care about different triggers. Here’s a simple mapping:

Compliance / onboardingPSC changes, address changes, insolvency status

Credit / riskOverdue accounts, filing history patterns, dissolution

B2B salesNew directors, new incorporations, sector changes, address moves

Competitive intelNew group structures, acquisitions signals, new SIC codes

Write down your alert rules before you pick tooling. Otherwise you’ll end up with noisy alerts that no one reads.

Step 2: Manual monitoring (fastest to start)

If you’re tracking a small list, the simplest workflow is:

Keep a list of company numbers you care about
Open the Companies House profile when needed
Check the Filing history, People, and Registered office address sections

Downside: it’s easy to miss changes, and it doesn’t scale.

Step 3: API-based monitoring (the scalable option)

Companies House provides APIs that let you fetch a company profile and filing history. A basic monitoring system looks like this:

Poll → Compare → Alert

Fetch key endpoints on a schedule, compare to last snapshot, notify on changes

What to poll

For a high-signal, low-noise setup, start with:

Company profile (status, registered office address, SIC)
Officers (directors appointed/resigned)
PSC (ownership/control changes)
Filing history (accounts and confirmation statements)

How to detect changes

Store a “last seen” snapshot per company and compare new data. A few examples:

New director alert: officer list contains an appointment date you haven’t seen
Address change alert: registered office address fields differ from previous snapshot
Overdue accounts alert: next accounts due date in the past, or filing history shows late accounts repeatedly

Tip: Don’t diff entire JSON blobs. Extract the 10–20 fields you actually care about and monitor those. You’ll get cleaner alerts.

Common pitfalls (and how to avoid them)

1) Alert fatigue

If you alert on every filing, people stop reading. Focus on “actionable” changes: new director, PSC, status, and overdue filings.

2) Company numbers vs names

Company names can change. Use company number as your primary key.

3) Registered office isn’t always “where they operate”

Many companies use accountants or virtual offices. Address change can still be useful, but interpret it carefully.

How NewCo Data fits in

If your goal is outreach (not just monitoring existing accounts), the best “alert” is often a feed of newly incorporated companies — because the first 7–14 days are when most supplier decisions get made.

NewCo Data delivers 2,500+ new UK companies per working day, with filtering by sector and region, so you can build simple triggers such as:

“Send new companies in SIC X in London daily”
“Only include businesses incorporated in the last 48 hours”
“Route leads to the right salesperson based on postcode”

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Methodology

This article describes common monitoring patterns using publicly available Companies House data. If you are implementing alerts for compliance purposes, consider internal policies and seek professional advice where appropriate.