Companies House Alerts: How to Monitor New UK Company Registrations
According to Companies House, 801,864 companies were incorporated in the UK in the year ending March 2025 (Companies House FYE 2025). For accountants, solicitors, and B2B service providers, each incorporation represents a potential client. The question is whether you can identify and reach them before someone else does.
This guide covers the different methods for monitoring Companies House, from free manual approaches to automated alert services.
Three Ways to Monitor Companies House
Three approaches exist for tracking new company registrations. Each involves different trade-offs in cost, effort, and results.
Free: The Companies House Website
Search and lookup companies manually using the official government website. Free but limited — you can only search for companies you already know about.
The official Companies House website provides basic search functionality at no cost. You can search for companies by name, registration number, or officer details.
What You Can Do
- Search for specific company names
- View company details, officers, and filing history
- Download accounts and annual returns
- Set up basic “Follow” alerts for specific companies you already know about
The Limitations
The Companies House website is designed for looking up known companies, not discovering new ones. You cannot:
- Browse all new incorporations in a geographic area
- Filter new companies by industry (SIC code)
- Receive alerts about new formations matching your criteria
- Export data for outreach campaigns
For a single lookup, the website works fine. For lead generation at any scale, it falls short.
Technical: The Companies House Streaming API
Real-time company data accessible programmatically. Powerful but requires significant technical expertise to implement and maintain.
Companies House offers a free API that allows developers to access company data programmatically, including a real-time feed of company events.
What the API Offers
- Real-time data: Events are typically published shortly after Companies House processes them
- Comprehensive coverage: All UK companies, not just new formations
- Detailed information: Company details, SIC codes, registered office addresses
The Technical Requirements
Building a production monitoring system around the API requires development expertise, since the API requires specialist knowledge to implement reliably. You need server infrastructure running continuously, either a dedicated server or cloud service. Custom filtering and storage logic must be built to extract only relevant data and store it in a database. And ongoing maintenance is unavoidable, covering connection handling, API updates, and data quality checks.
For professional services firms without in-house developers, this approach rarely makes sense.
Who Should Use the API Directly?
The raw API suits:
- Software companies building data products
- Large enterprises with dedicated technical teams
- Researchers analysing company formation patterns
Most professional services firms need something simpler.
Practical: Automated Alert Services
Subscribe to a monitoring service that filters Companies House data and delivers relevant results to your inbox. Low effort, high quality — the approach most practices choose.
A middle ground exists between manual searching and building your own system: services that monitor Companies House and deliver filtered, relevant results.
What to Look for in an Alert Service
Not all monitoring services are equal. The differences that matter:
Good Alert Service
- Filters by postcode area (not just region)
- Tags companies by industry using SIC codes
- Flags formation agent addresses
- Delivers clean daily email digests
- Transparent monthly pricing
Poor Alert Service
- No geographic filtering
- Raw data dumps without enrichment
- Dashboard-only with no email alerts
- Enterprise pricing hidden behind sales calls
- Long-term contracts required
Scottish Focus: A Unique Opportunity
Scotland’s business landscape creates particular opportunities for alert-based lead generation.
Market Size
Approximately 15,000 new companies incorporate in Scotland each year. Compare that to 500,000+ in England. The implications:
- Less noise to filter through
- Higher signal-to-noise ratio
- Achievable coverage of your target market
Relationship Dynamics
Scottish professional services remain relationship-driven. A well-timed, personalised introduction to a new business owner carries more weight than it might in London. In practice, the founders you contact are more likely to value local expertise and prefer working with someone nearby.
Geographic Concentration
Scotland’s business activity concentrates in a handful of postcode areas:
- G: Glasgow and surrounding areas
- EH: Edinburgh and East Lothian
- AB: Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire
- DD: Dundee
- FK/KY: Central Scotland
Five or six postcode areas capture the majority of Scottish business formations.
Comparing Your Options
| Approach | Cost | Effort | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manual CH website | Free | High | Low |
| Build with API | Free (time cost) | Very high | High |
| Alert service | £49-99/month | Low | High |
For most practices, the calculation is straightforward. If your hourly rate exceeds £50, outsourcing company monitoring to a dedicated service makes economic sense. The time you would spend building and maintaining your own system is better invested in client work.
A single new client covers months of subscription cost. The economics are compelling for any practice serious about growth.
Getting Started with Company Alerts
If company monitoring is new to you, start simple:
- Define your geography: Which postcode areas do you want to cover?
- Consider your sectors: Are there industries you particularly want to target, or avoid?
- Plan your outreach: What will you do when you receive alerts? A written approach makes the data actionable.
- Set expectations: Not every new company needs an accountant, and not every outreach will succeed. Treat this as one channel among many.
Beyond New Incorporations
New company alerts are valuable, but other Companies House data points can signal opportunity:
- Change of registered office: Businesses moving to your area
- New director appointments: Growth or restructuring
- Annual accounts filed: Financial health indicators
- Charges registered: Funding activity
Advanced users can build comprehensive intelligence by combining multiple data streams. For most practices, starting with new incorporations provides the clearest return.