Best Company Formation Agents in the UK

If you’re an entrepreneur planning to formally incorporate a UK company, you might be wondering: what is a company formation agent - and how can they help me?

UK company formation agents exist to help busy entrepreneurs and founders get their businesses set up with Companies House, and often also provide add-on services like virtual offices, accounting and business finance support.

This summary review of the best company formation agents in the UK has all you need to know about UK company formation services, what they do and what they cost.

What is a company formation agent?

You can use a company formation agent in the UK to register your new business with Companies House. This formal process of incorporating your business means it's registered as a separate entity to you as an individual.

It’s an important step - and because it’s often one of the first pieces of business bureaucracy you’ll need to deal with, formation agents have come along to make the process easier.

Companies House authorised formation agents often allow you to set up your business digitally, by simply providing your unique company name, your address and some basic director and shareholder information.

The process is pretty painless, and depending on which provider you pick, may even be free. Bear in mind though, that all company formation agents need to make their money somewhere - so if there’s no fee for the registration of your business, the chances are that there are other costs involved with accessing some of their services such as business banking or accounting support. We’ll look at how this works with some of the best company formation agents in the UK, next.

UK company formation agents

The company formation agents in the UK that we'll review in this article are as follows:

• 1st formations
• Anna
• CountingUp
• Tide
• Wise Business

If you’re interested in comparing a few more options, there’s also a full list of company formation agents on the Gov.uk website.

1st formations

1st formations¹ offers company formation services which can mean you’ve got a registered UK business in as little as 3 working hours. You’ll need to pick from several different package options, which all have their own features and fees. The lowest cost package lets you set up a limited business for just 12.99 GBP.

Here are your 1st formations package options and the costs:

• Digital package 12.99 GBP, set up a limited company and get digital company documents.
• Privacy package 27.99 GBP, set up a limited company, get digital company documents with a registered London office and service address
• Professional package 44.99 GBP, set up a limited company, get digital and printed company documents with a registered London office and service address, plus a confirmation statement.
• Prestige package 69.99 GBP, set up a limited company, get digital and printed company documents with a registered London office and service address, a confirmation statement, London business address and VAT registration.
• All inclusive package 99.99 GBP GBP, set up a limited company, get digital and printed company documents with a registered London office and service address, a confirmation statement, London business address, VAT and PAYE registration and company secretary service.

Anna

Anna Money offers business account services as well as company formation². You can set up a business account without using the company formation service, or choose a package which has company formation, an account and other optional features for a fee. Here are the options offered through Anna at the time of writing:

• Basic 15 GBP, set up a basic limited company and access other services separately rather than as a package.
• New business free at the time of writing, set up a limited company and get a business account plus free filing of your first confirmation statement.
• Added privacy 14.40 GBP/month, set up a limited company with a business account plus free filing of your first confirmation statement, and also get a GDPR compliance package and virtual office.
• +Taxes 36.90 GBP/month, get all the services in the added privacy package and also support for small business tax compliance.

CountingUp

CountingUp offers business accounts and some company formation services³. However, at the time of writing CountingUp can’t support new business registrations, so you’ll need to double check if the service has reopened before you decide to use it.

When it’s offered, the CountingUp company formation service has no fee of its own. All you have to do is to take a 3 month free trial of the CountingUp business account⁴.

If you decide to keep using the CountingUp account after the trial has ended, there’s a monthly fee based on the amount of deposits made in the account. This means your account fees change depending on how your business is doing. Costs are as follows:

• 1st Tier up to 750 GBP deposits a month, 3 GBP/month fee.
• 2nd Tier 750 GBP to 7,500 GBP deposits a month, 9 GBP/month fee.
• 3rd Tier over 7,500 GBP deposits a month, 18 GBP/month fee.

Tide

Tide offers business accounts as well as a company formation service⁵. There’s no specific fee for the company formation service, but there are extras you may choose to get from Tide which have fees. You’ll automatically get a Tide business account when you use their company formation service, and depending on the tier you choose you might have a monthly charge to pay. You can also buy services like a virtual office address through Tide if you’d like to.

If you decide to use the Tide business account the fee options are as follows⁶:

• Free no monthly fee, get a free debit card but pay for transactions as you go.
• Plus 9.99 GBP/month fee, get a free debit card, one free expense card, and a fixed number of fee free transactions monthly.
• Pro 18.99 GBP/month fee, get a free debit card, 2 free expense cards, and a selection of unlimited fee free transactions monthly.

Wise Business

If you expect to trade internationally, or if you need to pay contractors and suppliers overseas, you might like the Wise company formation service which also comes with a Wise Business account you can use to hold and exchange 40+ currencies.

Other powerful international features include the option to send payments to 160+ countries and local bank details for 9 currencies, which let you get paid conveniently. You can also get expense and debit cards for spending in 150+ countries - and all currency conversion uses the mid-market exchange rate with low fees from 0.43%^⁷.

Here’s what the Wise company formation service costs:

• Company formation 55 GBP one off fee, which also covers the opening cost of your Wise Business multi-currency account

Set up your limited company
with Wise 🚀

Setting up your new business in the UK shouldn’t take too long, and it doesn’t have to be too costly either. Use our list of the best company formation agents in the UK to pick the right one for you, and you could be all done in just a few hours.

Sources used in this article:

Soruces last checked October 27, 2023