Free tool · Before you incorporate

Company name availability checker

Check if your proposed UK company name is available at Companies House. We apply the official 'same as' normalisation rules and flag near matches so you don't hit a surprise rejection.

How the check works

Companies House applies "same as" rules that ignore common differences: capitalisation, punctuation, spacing, and suffixes like Ltd, Limited, PLC, LLP and CIC. We apply the same normalisation to your proposed name, search the live register, and flag any active company that ends up identical — plus close near matches worth reviewing.

Before you incorporate

Availability at Companies House is one hurdle. You also need to check the UK IPO trademark register, domain availability, and any sensitive words rules (e.g. "royal", "bank", "chartered"). Once you've locked in a name, run a full company and director check on any suppliers or partners you engage with under it.

Go beyond the basics

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