Does my endorsing body see my HMRC filings directly?

No, endorsing bodies don't have direct access to HMRC records. They rely on what you provide — annual accounts, management accounts, payroll summaries — at contact points and in monthly reports. The risk isn't that they'll independently discover a discrepancy; it's that a discrepancy becomes visible if a caseworker or the Home Office later asks for supporting documents that don't match.

What's the minimum filing an Innovator Founder company needs each year?

At minimum: a confirmation statement and annual accounts to Companies House, and a Corporation Tax return (CT600) to HMRC within 12 months of the company's year end, with the tax itself due 9 months and 1 day after year end. If you employ anyone, including yourself on salary, PAYE and Real Time Information submissions run continuously through the year, not just annually.

Should I pay myself a salary or take dividends as a visa holder?

This is a tax-efficiency and compliance question for your accountant, not an immigration one — but be aware that some endorsing bodies look at how you're drawing money from the business as one signal of whether it's a real, actively-managed operation versus a shell. Get specific advice rather than defaulting to whatever your accountant would recommend for a non-visa client.

What happens if I file accounts late or my company is flagged by Companies House?

A late filing penalty or a compliance flag from Companies House is a company law problem that can also become an immigration credibility problem, because it's exactly the kind of paper trail a caseworker can pull when reviewing your settlement application. Treat filing deadlines as fixed, not flexible.

Endorsement and HMRC: what your accountant should file alongside it

Founders on the Innovator Founder Visa tend to think about their obligations in two separate buckets: the endorsement reporting that goes to Envestors, Innovator International, or UKES, and the "normal business admin" that goes to Companies House and HMRC. Most accountants who haven't worked with visa clients before treat it the same way — file the statutory minimum, on time, and move on.

That separation is a mistake. The two tracks describe the same business, and they're read by different people who can, in the right circumstances, end up looking at both.

Key rules

An Innovator Founder Visa business has two parallel reporting obligations that run independently but must tell the same story: endorsement reporting to the endorsing body (contact points, monthly trading updates for some bodies) and statutory filings to Companies House and HMRC (confirmation statement, annual accounts, Corporation Tax return, PAYE/RTI if the company has employees). Endorsing bodies don't have direct access to HMRC systems, so they can't independently catch a discrepancy — but they routinely ask founders to produce accounts and financial evidence at contact points, and the Home Office can request the same documents when assessing an extension or Indefinite Leave to Remain application. A founder whose endorsement narrative says "strong revenue growth" while Companies House shows a dormant company, or whose contact point report claims two employees while no PAYE scheme exists, has created a credibility gap that has nothing to do with whether the business is actually succeeding. The fix isn't complicated: brief your accountant on the endorsement timeline, and treat the two filing tracks as one coordinated record rather than two unrelated compliance chores.

The two tracks, side by side

Obligation	Owed to	Frequency	What it shows
Contact point reports	Endorsing body	12/24/36 months (varies by body)	Progress against the endorsed plan
Monthly trading reports	Endorsing body (Envestors requires this; others vary)	Monthly	Ongoing activity between checkpoints
Confirmation statement	Companies House	Annually	Company structure, shareholders, registered office
Annual accounts	Companies House	Annually (within 9 months of year end for private companies)	Statutory financial position
Corporation Tax return (CT600)	HMRC	Annually (within 12 months of year end)	Taxable profit and Corporation Tax due
PAYE / RTI	HMRC	Every pay run	Salary, tax and National Insurance for employees, including a founder on salary
VAT returns	HMRC	Quarterly (if VAT-registered)	Sales and purchases subject to VAT

None of these deadlines are set with immigration reporting in mind — Companies House and HMRC don't know or care that you're on an Innovator Founder Visa. That's precisely why coordination has to be deliberate rather than assumed.

Why this matters more than it looks like it should

Endorsing bodies are explicit that contact point checkpoints test progress against the originally endorsed plan, and part of that evidence is financial: revenue, burn rate, headcount. See contact point meetings: what really gets checked and monthly trading reports for what assessors actually look for.

The Home Office's own review, whether at a visa extension or an Indefinite Leave to Remain application, can also draw on documentary evidence including company filings. A caseworker checking whether the business is "active trading and sustainable" — the core settlement test — has every incentive to check Companies House records, which are public, against what's been claimed in the application.

Where founders actually go wrong

Treating the accountant as generic, not visa-aware

The single most common failure is hiring a competent general-practice accountant who has never worked with an Innovator Founder client and has no reason to flag anything beyond statutory compliance. They'll file everything correctly and on time — and never think to tell you that your dormant-company filing status contradicts the "actively trading" language in your endorsement report, because nobody told them that language existed.

Confusing "pre-revenue" with "dormant"

A genuinely pre-revenue startup — spending on product development, not yet invoicing customers — is a normal and often expected stage of an endorsed business, especially in the first 12 months. A company filed as dormant with Companies House is a formal legal status meaning it has had no significant accounting transactions in the period. If your company is doing real work — paying for tools, contractors, even just a registered office — it likely shouldn't be filed dormant, and doing so while telling your endorsing body the business is active creates exactly the mismatch described above.

Ignoring PAYE when claiming job creation

Job creation toward the two of seven growth criteria or the settlement achievements is not just a headcount you report verbally — it needs to be backed by a functioning PAYE scheme with Real Time Information submitted to HMRC for each employee. A founder who tells an endorsing body "I've hired two people" without a corresponding PAYE record has no independent evidence for that claim if it's later questioned.

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Missing the Corporation Tax deadline distinction

Founders sometimes assume Corporation Tax is due when the return is filed. It isn't. The CT600 return is due within 12 months of the company's year end, but the tax itself is due 9 months and 1 day after year end — three months earlier. Missing this because nobody explained the distinction generates HMRC penalties and interest that show up as a liability on your accounts, which is exactly the kind of thing that looks bad if an assessor or caseworker ever reviews your financial statements.

A practical filing calendar

Rather than treating endorsement reporting and statutory filing as separate calendars, build one combined timeline:

Company year end — set this deliberately when incorporating; many founders align it to make the annual accounts land conveniently ahead of a contact point, though this isn't required.
9 months after year end — Corporation Tax payment due.
9 months after year end (private company) — annual accounts due at Companies House.
12 months after year end — CT600 return due at HMRC.
Confirmation statement — due annually on the anniversary of incorporation (or last statement), separate from the accounts deadline.
Contact points — overlay your 12/24/36-month endorsement checkpoints onto the same calendar so you can see, at a glance, whether a statutory filing deadline falls close to a contact point and plan accordingly.

The fundamental targets to do with settlement involve the business being active trading and sustainable and significant progress being made against your last endorsed plan.

— Richard Harrison, Innovator International

"Active trading and sustainable" is not just a narrative you construct for the endorsing body — it's a status that should be visible, consistently, in the statutory record too.

Sources and further reading

Key takeaways

Endorsement reporting and Companies House/HMRC filings are separate legal obligations, but they describe the same business and can be cross-checked.
Endorsing bodies don't have direct HMRC access, but they routinely request accounts and financial evidence, and the Home Office can pull public Companies House records independently.
A pre-revenue company doing real work should generally not be filed dormant — the mismatch with an "actively trading" endorsement narrative is a credibility risk.
Job creation claims need a PAYE/RTI paper trail, not just a verbal headcount at a contact point.
Brief your accountant on your endorsement timeline explicitly — most general-practice accountants have no reason to flag this coordination on their own.