Companies that need an accountant: new formations and accounts due, by council
Where can an accountant find the companies in their area that need an accountant, whether newly formed or with accounts due soon? One email every Monday, with a workbook that opens on the companies you can reach today.
Measured on 20,000 real companies that our model had never seen, followed for three years, including the ones that closed. How we know
Behind that, the new companies in your council, ranked by how likely each is to become a real business, with a verified website and business email for the ones already up and running, before they've chosen a firm. About 15,020 companies are incorporated in the UK each week, and only about two in five of those formed since the 2024 fee rise go on to trade. And the companies with accounts due in the next three months that aren't registered at an accountant's address: 1,491 in Chelmsford right now, each with trading accounts behind it, a current confirmation statement and its own registered address (not an accountant's, not an agent's).
What you get
The ones you can reach, first
The workbook opens on Ready to contact: every company in the week's lists with a website, a mailbox, a contact page or a phone number. This week's new companies come first, ranked, then established companies at the moments that matter to an accountant, then companies from your council's last twelve weekly lists with their contact details as we hold them today, then the companies with accounts due. It's a shortcut, not a filter: every company is also on its own sheet, including the ones with no contact details yet.
The ones that will need you
Year-end accounts, VAT registration, payroll, self-assessment for the director: a trading company needs all of it within months. A dormant shell or a property vehicle needs none of it. The ranking separates the two, on the This week sheet.
The ones that need you by a date
The Accounts due sheet: every company in your council that has filed trading accounts before, is up to date with its confirmation statement, isn't in strike-off, and is registered at its own address rather than an accountant's or an agent's, with accounts due in the next three months. In Chelmsford that's 1,491 companies over the next three months, plus 70 already overdue but not yet in strike-off. It comes as a weekly batch (the companies due about twelve weeks out, which leaves time to win the work and prepare the accounts properly) with the exact due date, last accounts and the registered office ready for a letter, and the whole three months once when you subscribe. A late set of accounts costs the company £150 rising to £1,500. A letter from an accountant who can get them in on time is the one piece of post it will open.
The ones that may be changing accountant
The Something changed sheet: established companies whose registered office has just moved away from an accountancy firm's address, which can mean they've parted with that firm, and the ones that took on their first staff, passed the small company limits, showed a VAT number or took on a new owner. Each comes with the reason it's there and the ways to reach it.
A route that works
A letter to a formation agent's address goes in the bin. A verified website with a generic mailbox, or a registered premises, reaches the person who is actually starting the business.
The stamp costs more than the record
Writing to all 152 of Chelmsford's new companies in a month is roughly £160 in postage at second-class rates, and about 67 of them will ever trade. So about £90 of that reaches a company that never opens its doors. Raw lists sell for around 15p a record; the postage is six or seven times the record, which is why knowing which letters to send is worth more than the list is.
Not already spoken for
We flag companies whose registered office is an accountancy firm's address. They already have an accountant, so you can spend your time on the rest.
Nothing that gets you in trouble
No director names, no home addresses, no scraped personal mailboxes. Public register data plus each company's own public website, with the source and date on every row.
What one client is worth
A new limited company typically pays £1,200 to £2,500 a year for accounts, corporation tax, payroll and the director's self-assessment, and stays with its first accountant for years. One client won from the list pays for four years of it.
Why a ranked lead is worth more than a raw one
Half of new companies don't last, and most never trade. Of the 1,178,421 companies formed in the UK at their own address between January 2022 and September 2023, 49% were no longer on the register three years later and only 35% had ever filed trading accounts. That's the Business Survival Index, council by council. A list of every new company is mostly companies that will never trade, and half of it will be gone within three years.
We tested it. We took 20,000 companies formed in 2022 and 2023, ranked them with a model that had never seen them, and followed every one for three years, including the ones that closed. 89% of the new companies we ranked highest were still registered three years later. For all new companies it was 49%, and for the ones we ranked lowest 27%. Over those three years a company we ranked highest spent 27 months trading. The average new company spent 12. That's 2.3 times the value per lead. See the full comparison, and what it's worth to you.
Why 49% here and 51% in the Business Survival Index: this test is a random sample of every company formed in 2022 and 2023, including those registered at formation agents' addresses, which close more often. The index counts companies at their own address only. Both are measured the same way, three years after each company was formed.
Salenovo's score is built on outcomes like these: companies followed from the day they were formed to whether they went on to trade. Tested on companies it had never seen, the top band (A) went on to trade 67% of the time and the bottom band (E) 15% (method and held-out results). So the top of each week's list is the companies most likely to be trading next year and the year after: clients who need their accounts done every year, not a name that's gone by the time you call.
A worked example: Chelmsford
In Chelmsford last week: 35 companies incorporated, about 15 expected to trade. Over the last 8 weeks, 19 of the council's new companies already have a website verified as theirs and 2 have registered food premises. You get all 35, ranked, so the 15 are at the top and the rest are still there if you want them. And 1,491 companies in Chelmsford have accounts due in the next three months and aren't registered at an accountant's address. Those are on the Accounts due sheet. See the Chelmsford page, see a real week's list, or compare any area.
Against what you do today
| Raw register dump | Companies House by hand | Salenovo | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What arrives | About 15,020 companies a week nationally, unranked, often with director names | Whatever you can find by searching by date and postcode | All 35 in Chelmsford, ranked so the 15 likely to trade are at the top, with signals |
| Contact route | Registered office (often an agent) or 'email where available' | Registered office only | Verified website and generic mailbox where the company has one; registered premises for food businesses |
| Already has an accountant? | Not shown | Look up the address yourself | Flagged on every row |
| Accounts due soon, not at an accountant's address | Not shown | One company at a time, from its filing history | A weekly batch, twelve weeks ahead, with due date and registered office, on the Accounts due sheet |
| When you hear | Daily or monthly dump | When you get round to it | Weekly digest, every Monday |
| Time per week | An hour or two sifting | Two to three hours searching | Ten minutes reading a list |
Business-to-business email to a limited company or LLP is permitted under PECR without prior consent, provided you say who you are and offer an opt-out. Every row says where the address came from. No director names, no home addresses.
Your first week
- Monday: the email arrives with the workbook. It opens on Ready to contact, the companies you can reach today: this week's new companies with a website, mailbox, contact page or phone number first, then established companies that have just moved away from an accountant's address or taken on their first staff, then the rest.
- This week has every new company in your council, ranked A to E, with the ones already registered at an accountancy firm flagged; Accounts due has the companies with accounts due in the next three months that aren't registered at an accountant's address.
- Open the 'Accounts due' sheet. This week's batch is the companies whose accounts fall due about twelve weeks from now and aren't registered at an accountant's address (1,491 in Chelmsford over the next three months in all). Write to them this week; next Monday brings the next batch.
- Read the A and B rows that are operating businesses not registered at an accountant's address. That's usually five to fifteen a week for one council.
- Open the website where there's one (a minute each) and note what they do; the row already gives you the line.
- Send the short email to the generic mailbox, or the letter with a first-year deadlines checklist. The templates are on the templates page.
- Log who replied. Companies with nothing yet are re-checked at 7, 14, 28 and 56 days and come back to you when a website or premises appears.
Two short messages that work (an email and a letter) and the one line that matters for your trade are on the templates page.
Questions
How many new companies are formed in the UK each week?
In the week of 19 October to 25 October 2026, 15,020 companies were incorporated in the UK, about 3,004 per working day. The number varies by season and is shown for every council on this site.
Which companies in my area have accounts due soon and aren't registered at an accountant's address?
Every council page shows the count for free. In Chelmsford, 1,491 companies that have filed trading accounts before, are current on their confirmation statement and are registered at their own address have accounts due in the next three months, plus 70 already overdue but not yet in strike-off. The free Monday email names five of them. The paid list carries them on the Accounts due sheet of the weekly workbook: one week's batch each Monday (the companies due about twelve weeks out, with the exact due date, last accounts filed and the registered office), and the whole three months once when you subscribe.
What proportion of new UK companies actually trade?
About a third, and about two in five since the fee rise of May 2024. Of the 2.5 million companies formed from 2022 to 2024, 33% had filed accounts as a trading business by September 2026; the rest were dissolved, struck off or stayed dormant. The share varies a great deal by formation channel and sector, which is what the ranking uses.
Is it legal to email a newly formed limited company?
Business-to-business marketing email to a limited company or LLP is permitted under PECR without prior consent, provided you identify yourself and offer an easy opt-out. Sole traders and partnerships are treated as individuals and need consent. Salenovo only supplies generic business mailboxes shown on the company's own website, never personal addresses.
How is this different from a list of every new company, or a Companies House download?
Those give you the register: every incorporation, with no view on which will trade and no checked contact route. We give you the judgement on top: which ones are likely to become businesses and to last, which already have a real website or premises, and which already have an accountant. On the Accounts due sheet you also get the established companies in the council with accounts due soon that aren't registered at an accountant's address. How we compare with other providers is on our comparison page, linked at the top of every page.
Isn't it cheaper to buy a raw list and write to everyone?
The list is the cheap part. Raw new-company lists sell for around 15p a record, and a second-class letter is 91p, or closer to £1.05 once it's printed and enveloped. On a postal campaign the data is about a tenth of what it costs to use it and the postage is the rest, so a filter that removes a letter is worth several times what the record cost. Salenovo ranks the list and classifies every registered office (own premises, home, accountant, formation agent, virtual office) at £29 a month for a council.
Does the list contain personal data, and what am I allowed to do with it?
No director names, no dates of birth, no nationalities, no home addresses and no personal email addresses: the list is about companies, not people. That matters for you as well as for them. When an organisation gets personal data from somewhere other than the person, UK GDPR says it has to tell them who has it, why, on what basis and where it came from, within a month or at first contact. A bought list of named directors starts that clock for the buyer. A list of companies never starts it. What you get instead is the registered office laid out for a letter, the company's own website once we have checked it is theirs, and the generic mailbox shown on it (info@, hello@), never a named person's.
So can I email these companies?
Yes, if they are limited companies or LLPs. The ICO treats those as corporate subscribers under PECR, so you may email them without prior consent as long as you do not conceal who you are and you give a valid address to opt out. Sole traders and ordinary partnerships are different, and need consent or the soft opt-in; everything on our list is a limited company or an LLP. Two things are yours to do whatever the list says: stop the moment somebody asks, because the right to object to direct marketing is absolute, and screen numbers against the TPS and CTPS registers before you ring. The ICO fined one company £160,000 in May 2026 for calling registered numbers.
Where does the data come from, and can a company be removed?
The Companies House public register, the Office for National Statistics, the Food Standards Agency, the Environment Agency and police.uk, all under the Open Government Licence, plus each company's own public website, fetched by a crawler that identifies itself and obeys robots.txt. Every row carries its source and the date. Any company can ask to have its contact details, or its whole record, taken out: salenovo.com/remove, honoured within five working days. Our own privacy notice is at salenovo.com/privacy.
Method and accuracy: how the numbers are made. Incorporations from the Companies House public register, mapped to councils with the ONS Postcode Directory; "expected to trade" from the historical outcomes of 2.5 million companies formed in 2022, 2023 and 2024, by formation address and sector; websites verified by fetching the company's name-matching domain and checking it against the company; food premises from the Food Standards Agency's register. All Open Government Licence. Every row in the paid list carries its source and date.
For advisory work: the growth list
The weekly list is new companies. The other list is established companies (every A and B one three or more years old) at the moment the public record says they are scaling: hiring, growing turnover, raising money, borrowing, winning contracts or taking on premises, each with the reason in one line. It is the growth list: established companies that are scaling, for advisory practices: £250 a month for a region or £1,000 for the UK, monthly, stop at any month's end, and the first two weeks are free. The weekly list and the growth list side by side.
Other uses: Insurance brokers · Web, design & marketing agencies · Hospitality & food-service suppliers · Lenders, brokers & fintech · Commercial property & serviced offices · B2B suppliers: telecoms, payroll, EPOS, merchant services · Councils, LEPs & business improvement districts · Business owners