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How to incorporate a limited company

Posted May 11, 2011

If you are thinking of contracting via your own limited company, there are typically three ways of incorporating your new company:

You can either use a formations agent to set up the company, apply to Companies House directly, or it is a service offered by many specialist contractor accountants.

Many contractors decide to use a third party to take care of the incorporation process. Formations agents charge anything upwards of about £35 to create your company.

You can choose to have a 'basic' service whereby you receive all paperwork electronically, or you can pay more for paper versions of your incorporation documents and certificate of incorporation.

Accountants will either offer this as a 'free' option if you sign up as a new client, or will charge a one-off 'set up' fee which may also include VAT registration and other processes.

Incorporating a limited company

If you want to set up a company yourself, you need to file three documents with Companies House;

1) Form IN01, which contains details of your registered office, the company officers, and details of the share capital.

2) Memorandum of Association - the details of subscribers who wish to form the company (you can download a pro forma standard memorandum here - PDF).

3) Articles of Association - details how the company will be run, its liability, and its internal management affairs.

After preparing these documents, you need to return them to Companies House with a filing fee.

If you use the web incorporation process, you pay £18.

The paper-based route costs £40 (with a 8-10 day turnaround), or £100 for a same-day service.

Further Information

- For more information on forming a company yourself, refer to this Companies House guide.

- For professional assistance, try our directory of specialist accountants.

- You can set up a company online via our formations partner, Duport

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