Section 384B of the Companies Act 2006 defines the types of company that are excluded from being treated as micro-entities. These are summarised below, but if you are unsure whether this applies to your company you should refer to the relevant section of the legislation.

A company cannot be treated as a micro-entity if at any point in time during the financial period concerned it was: 


  1. Excluded from the small companies regime. Refer to section 384of the Companies Act 2006 for a full list of exclusions but this does include the following:

    i. Public limited companies (whether traded on a market or not).

    ii. Authorised insurance companies, banking companies, e-money issuers, MiFID investment firms and UCITS management companies.

    iii. Companies carrying out insurance market activity (as defined by the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, section 316(3)).

  2. A charity.

  3. An investment undertaking.

  4. A financial holding or insurance undertaking.

  5. A credit institution.

  6. An overseas company.

  7. An unregistered company.

  8. A subsidiary company that is included in full consolidated group accounts for the financial period concerned

  9. A parent company that prepares group accounts for the financial period concerned.*


* A parent company that does not prepare group accounts can only qualify as a micro-entity for the purposes of its individual accounts if it meets the eligibility criteria for a micro-entity itself and the group it heads qualifies as small. 



Additional eligibility criteria when using Inform Direct to prepare micro-entity accounts 


In addition to eligibility criteria set out in the relevant regulations, the following company types that may be eligible to file micro-entity accounts cannot currently do so using Inform Direct: 


  • Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) 
  • Community Interest Company (CIC) 
  • Unlimited company with share capital


We will look to extend our micro-entity accounts service to these company types (where applicable) in the future. 



Audit Exempt Micro-Entity Accounts only 


The majority of companies that qualify to prepare micro-entity accounts will choose not to have an audit. However, please note that if the company is required to prepare audited accounts you cannot do so using Inform Direct. This may apply to some flat management companies if they have to prepare audited accounts to comply with the terms of their lease.




You cannot use Inform Direct to prepare audited micro-entity accounts, or prepare micro-entity accounts for Limited Liability Partnerships. However, if you are a Subscriber using your own presenter code, and you are able to upload an iXBRL tagged company accounts file to Inform Direct, we can electronically submit these accounts to Companies House on your behalf. See: How do I upload and file IXBRL company accounts?