If you are a director of your own limited company, your next Self Assessment return has changed, and getting it wrong now carries a fixed penalty. From the 2025/26 tax year, directors of close companies must complete a set of new boxes on the employment pages of their tax return, giving HMRC more detail about the company and what they took out of it.
The catch is that these boxes are mandatory even if you took no dividends, hold no shares, or run a dormant company. Leave one blank and HMRC can charge £60 per failure, and if you are a director of more than one company, those penalties can stack. Here is exactly what is new, who is caught, and how to file correctly.
In a nutshell
- There are new mandatory boxes from 2025/26. On the SA102 employment pages of your return.
- Four pieces of information are required. Company name, registration number, dividends and shareholding.
- It applies to directors of close companies. Which is most small UK limited companies.
- Even unpaid directors must now file an SA102. The old "no salary, no page" shortcut is gone.
- The penalty is £60 for each failure. And it multiplies across multiple directorships.
- Gather your figures before you file. Name, number, dividends and your highest shareholding.
1. What has changed for this tax year
Under new regulations, directors of close companies have to give HMRC extra information on their Self Assessment return from the 2025/26 tax year onwards. The disclosures sit on the SA102 employment pages, in new boxes numbered 7.1 to 7.4, alongside a tick to confirm the company is close.
This is purely a reporting change. It does not alter how much tax you pay. What it does is give HMRC a clearer, joined up picture of who controls small companies and what they are extracting as dividends, which is part of a wider push to close the tax gap among small businesses. The first returns under these rules cover 2025/26 and are due by 31 January 2027.
2. The four new boxes explained
There are four pieces of information to provide for each close company you are a director of:
- Company name. The registered name of the company.
- Company registration number. The number from Companies House, not your UTR or PAYE reference.
- Dividends received (box 7.3). The amount of dividend income you received from that company during the year, even if it is zero.
- Highest percentage shareholding (box 7.4). The largest percentage of the company's share capital you held at any point in the year, even if it is zero. If your holding changed during the year, you give the maximum.
The phrase "even if it is zero" matters. These are not optional fields you can skip when the answer is nil. A nil answer still has to be entered as a figure, because a blank box is treated as a failure to provide the information.
3. What counts as a close company
A close company is, broadly, a UK company controlled by five or fewer participators, or controlled by any number of participators who are also directors. A participator is essentially anyone with a share or financial interest in the company.
In plain terms, the typical contractor company, family company or small owner managed limited company is almost always a close company. If you and your spouse own your company, or you are the sole director shareholder, you are a director of a close company and these rules apply to you. Most of the directors reading this will be caught.
4. Even unpaid directors now have to file
This is the part that surprises people. Until now, HMRC let a director skip the SA102 employment pages entirely if they took no salary and received no benefits in kind. Many unpaid directors of dormant or pre trading companies simply left those pages off.
That shortcut is effectively gone. Because the new close company disclosures live on the SA102, you may now need to complete that page even if you drew no salary, took no dividend and own no shares. The trigger is being a director of a close company, not how much you were paid. So a salaried director with no shareholding still has to file the page and enter zeros where relevant.
5. The penalty and how it multiplies
HMRC has introduced a fixed £60 penalty for each failure to provide the required information. A single blank box where a figure was required can trigger it.
The sting is in the multiplication. The information is reported per directorship, on a separate SA102 page for each company. So a director of three close companies has three sets of boxes to complete. Get it wrong across all three and you are not looking at one £60 penalty, but potentially one for each failure. For someone juggling a trading company and a couple of dormant ones, an innocent omission can become a surprisingly large bill for what is, in substance, a paperwork slip.
6. What to do before you file
The fix is simple if you prepare. For each close company you are a director of, gather:
- The exact registered company name.
- The company registration number from your Companies House record.
- The total dividends you received from that company in 2025/26, or zero if none.
- Your highest percentage shareholding during the year, or zero if you hold no shares.
Then make sure a separate SA102 page is completed for each directorship, with every new box filled in, using zero rather than a blank wherever the answer is nil. If you use an accountant, tell them about every directorship you hold, including dormant companies, so none are missed.
A worked example: a director of two companies
Priya is the sole director and shareholder of her trading consultancy, and also an unpaid director of a dormant company she set up but never traded. For 2025/26 she took £30,000 of dividends from the consultancy and holds 100% of its shares. She took nothing from the dormant company and owns no shares in it.
On her tax return she now needs two SA102 pages. On the first, she enters the consultancy's name and registration number, £30,000 of dividends in box 7.3, and 100% in box 7.4. On the second, she enters the dormant company's name and number, zero dividends and zero shareholding. If she forgot the dormant company entirely, or left its boxes blank, she could face a £60 penalty for that failure, despite owing no extra tax. Filing both pages correctly costs her nothing.
Things to watch out for
- Zero is an answer, blank is a failure. Always enter a figure, even if it is nil.
- Dormant companies still count. Being a director of a dormant close company still triggers the disclosure.
- Use the company registration number, not your UTR. They are different references and HMRC wants the Companies House number.
- One page per directorship. Do not try to combine multiple companies onto a single SA102.
- No extra tax, but a real penalty. Nothing here increases your tax bill, but the £60 charges are genuine and avoidable.
How Ollen Services Can Help
The new director disclosures are easy to get wrong precisely because they feel like a formality, and the penalty applies even when no tax is at stake. We make sure every directorship you hold is captured, every box is completed correctly, and dormant or unpaid roles are not quietly forgotten and turned into a £60 charge.
If you are a director of one company or several, we will prepare your Self Assessment return so the new close company boxes are right first time, and explain what each figure means for your wider tax position.
Call us on 07513 491 259 or email hello@ollenservices.co.uk. With the first returns under these rules due by 31 January 2027, now is the time to get your directorships in order.