InvestWise UK

To form your company you will need the following details:

• Your company name
  
• SIC code/s - to describe your companies activities.
  
• Registered office address - You need to provide a UK address where official correspondence will be sent, e.g. letters from Companies House, HM Revenue & Customs. With our packages, you can use our address as your registered office address.
  
• Director and shareholder information - Name/s, nationality, date of birth, occupation and address for all directors and shareholders.
  
• Share allocation - details of the share percentage held by each shareholder.
  
• Person with significant control - details of anyone holding more than 25% of the company's shares or voting rights.

A director's service address is a legal requirement to register a company and is a company officer's official address for receiving government mail. InvestWise provides a London address which you may use as your registered office address, director's service address and trading address. Simply choose and buy this option when registering your company.

It is a legal requirement for registering a company that the company must have a registered office address in the UK, where the company's official correspondence will be sent.

In order to form a company, you will need to appoint at least one director (responsible for running the company) and one shareholder (owner of the company). A company can be formed with only one person who can be both director and shareholder. Where there is only one director, that director must be a natural or real person. While corporate entities (companies) can act as director, secretary and shareholder, a natural person will still need to be appointed as director.

All directors must be at least 16 years old and not disqualified from being a director.

You may choose any company name, provided it is not identical to any other company name already registered at Companies House, and the name is not offensive. The chosen name also cannot contain a 'sensitive' word or expression, or suggest a connection with government or local authorities, unless you get permission. You can use the tool on our website to check if your company name is available or is not deemed sensitive.

At incorporation, the company must issue a minimum of one share. If there is more than one shareholder, you must issue at least one share per shareholder. If you wish to be the sole owner of the company, you must issue a single share to own 100% of the company. However, having only 1 share will complicate things should you wish to split ownership in the future. A more common practice is to issue an amount which is divisible to allow future split or change of ownership, for example, 100 shares of £1 each upon incorporation with each share representing 1% of the company.

When registering a company, Companies House requires you to provide at least one SIC code, which is described as a 5-digit classification to describe what your business does. Don't worry, the online application has a drop-down menu with all the available classifications; all you need to do is select one code which most accurately describes your intended business activities. You may not be able to find a code that matches your activities precisely, but you can select a general SIC from the list. If you choose the wrong SIC code at incorporation, or if your main business activities change after company formation, you can update your SIC code when filing your next confirmation statement.