How to Run a Free Company Credit Check in the UK

What a Free Company Credit Check Can Tell You

A thorough company credit check answers three questions:

1. 1Can they pay? — Liquidity and cashflow signals
2. 2Are they solvent? — Balance sheet strength and insolvency risk
3. 3Are they reliable? — Filing compliance, director history, and public record signals

The good news: the data sources needed to answer all three questions are free, public, and maintained by UK government bodies. The challenge is knowing where to look and how to interpret what you find.

Step 1: Find the Company on Companies House

Start at companies.gov.uk and search for the company by name or registered number. Every UK limited company is required to be registered here. The company profile gives you:

• Company status — active, dissolved, in liquidation, etc.
• Registered address — cross-check against the address on their invoices
• Date of incorporation — newer companies carry statistically higher default risk
• SIC code — the industry classification (useful for benchmarking)
• Filing deadlines — whether accounts and confirmation statement are overdue

Check the status first. If the company shows as "liquidation", "administration", or "dissolved", stop immediately.

Step 2: Review the Filed Accounts

From the Companies House profile, navigate to the filing history and download the most recent annual accounts. Look for:

Balance sheet items:

• Total assets vs total liabilities (does equity exist and is it positive?)
• Current assets vs current liabilities (current ratio above 1.0 is healthy for most businesses)
• Cash and cash equivalents (how much liquid cash does the company hold?)

P&L items (if available):

• Revenue trend — growing, flat, or declining?
• Gross margin — is the core business profitable?
• Net profit or loss — is the company generating retained earnings?

Many UK SMEs file micro-entity or abridged accounts with no P&L. This is legally permitted and common — it does not by itself indicate a problem. But it limits your analysis to balance sheet ratios only.

Step 3: Check The Gazette

Go to thegazette.co.uk and search for the company. Filter for insolvency-related notices. You're looking for:

• Winding-up petitions (a creditor believes the company cannot pay)
• Administration appointments (a formal insolvency process has begun)
• CVA notices (the company is restructuring its debts)
• Striking-off notices (Companies House intends to remove the company)

Any Gazette entry is a serious signal. A winding-up petition alone should be enough to pause any credit extension immediately.

Step 4: Check the OFSI Sanctions List

The OFSI UK Consolidated Sanctions List at gov.uk lists individuals and entities subject to UK financial sanctions. Run the company directors through this list — extending credit to a sanctioned individual creates serious legal exposure.

Step 5: Check Director History

Back on Companies House, review the officers section. Look at the appointment history:

• Are the directors also directors of other companies? Check those companies' statuses.
• Have directors resigned recently? A cluster of recent director resignations is sometimes an early warning sign.
• How long has the current director been appointed? Very recently appointed directors at a struggling company can indicate a change of control.

Using FinancialInsight for Free

The five steps above, done manually, take 30–45 minutes per company. FinancialInsight automates all of them in under 60 seconds — computing the financial ratios, checking The Gazette, screening against OFSI, reviewing filing compliance, and generating a composite 0–100 credit score with a plain-English AI report.

The free tier includes 3 full credit checks per month with no credit card required. Each check returns the complete credit score, all 19 financial ratios, director and PSC background check, Gazette screening, and a PDF export.

For teams running more than 3 checks per month, paid plans start at £19/month for 25 checks.

What Free Checks Can't Tell You

Free data sources have limits. The main gap is trade payment behaviour — how quickly the company actually pays its suppliers. This data (Days Beyond Terms, payment trend) is held by commercial credit bureaus like Creditsafe and Dun & Bradstreet, who aggregate it from member companies' accounts receivable ledgers. There is no free equivalent.

For higher-value credit decisions (above £25,000), consider supplementing a free check with a bureau report for the payment behaviour data.

Key Takeaways

• Five free data sources cover most of what you need: Companies House, The Gazette, OFSI, HMRC VAT, and ONS benchmarks
• Check company status first — a dissolved or liquidating company is an immediate stop
• Review filed accounts for balance sheet ratios, even if P&L is absent
• The Gazette is the critical early-warning source for imminent insolvency events
• FinancialInsight automates all five steps in under 60 seconds — free for 3 checks/month