Free company credit check UK: what you can and can't get for free
What a 'free company credit check' really gives you, and how to check a UK company safely for £3.49.
What "free" really means
Search for a "free company credit check" and you'll find plenty of sites offering one — but read the small print. A genuine credit score (and the CCJs and payment history behind it) is owned by the credit reference agencies, and it is never truly free: the "free" sites either show you a teaser and charge for the real number, or they're funnelling you into a paid subscription. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's worth knowing what you're actually getting before you hand over card details.
What you CAN get for free
A lot, actually. The UK's Companies House register is genuinely free and public, and it holds most of what tells you whether a company is safe to deal with: whether it's active or dissolved, how long it's traded, whether its accounts are filed on time, who the directors are, and its filed financial statements. The Gazette and the insolvency registers — also free — publish winding-up and strike-off notices. You can check all of it yourself, for nothing, if you know where to look and how to read it.
The catch: it's scattered and written for accountants
The free data is spread across several registers, each with its own search, and it's presented as raw filings rather than a clear answer. Working out whether "accounts overdue" plus "a director with three dissolved companies" adds up to a real problem takes time and some know-how. That interpretation — turning the free public record into a plain trade, caution or avoid verdict — is the bit that's worth paying a small amount for.
Free check vs a £3.49 report
- Do it free yourself if you have the time: search Companies House for the company, check its status and filing history, click through each director to their other companies, then search The Gazette for its name. Perfectly doable.
- Pay £3.49 if you'd rather have it done in seconds: TradeChecker pulls all of that together, runs the phoenix director cross-check for you, reads the filed accounts, and gives you one verdict plus suggested credit terms and a dated report to keep on file.
Either way, remember what free public data doesn't include: a formal credit score, a credit limit, or CCJ/payment history. For those you need a paid credit reference agency. For a fast, clear safety read before you invoice or pay someone, the public record is usually all you need.
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