Cost Recovery Principles

Companies House is a Trading Fund and must operate on the basis of cost recovery. Companies House fees are linked, as required by European Law and HM Treasury guidance, to the forecast cost of providing each service and also to the way in which Companies House customers access them.

The principal fees rules and statute that Companies House follows are:

• As a Trading Fund, Companies House has a statutory duty to break even over time ("taking one year with another") and to achieve an average annual return (surplus) of 3.5%.
• Managing Public Money which is HM Treasury guidance on fees and charges requires fees to be set to break even (i.e. to recover the full cost) for each separate service after allowing for a cost of capital of 3.5%. This effectively prohibits cross-subsidy between different statutory services.
• The EC First Company Law Directive, as amended, requires copies of company records to be made available to the public at a price not exceeding the "administrative cost" of producing them.
• The EC Capital Taxes Directive allows company registration costs to be met from fees, but prohibits charges that are effectively taxes. This means that prices cannot lawfully be set above costs for the relevant services.
• Case law (notably Fantask A/S e.a. v Industriministeriet (Erhvervministeriet). European Court case C-188/95 and Ponente Carni SpA and Cispandana Costruzioni SpA v Amministrazione delle Finanze dello Stato European Court joined cases C-71/91 and C-178/91) provides further guidance on the costs that can, and cannot, be taken into account for fee-setting.
• The Directive on Re-use of Public Sector Information says that "the total income from supplying and allowing re-use of documents shall not exceed the cost of collection, production, reproduction and dissemination, together with a reasonable return on investment. Charges should be cost-oriented over the appropriate accounting period and calculated in line with the accounting principles applicable to the public sector bodies involved."
• The Competition Act 1998 prohibits the abuse of a dominant position in a market. CH is dominant in that it is the only source for this type of information, by virtue of its statutory function.