Every UK company which is formed is given a distinct company number. The number is assigned to each company by Companies House upon it being accepted and incorporated. A company number consists of eight digits. The first of these digits is usually a zero and because of this, in most cases only the last seven numbers are usually required to be noted.
The certificate of incorporation of a new company will show only the last seven numbers although the company number is actually eight digits and has a leading zero which is omitted.
Scottish Company numbers
Companies House use a special reference to distinguish between English and Scottish companies. Scottish company numbers are prefixed with the letters "SC". For example, an English company might have the number 06488522, whilst the equivalent Scottish company number would be displayed as SC06488522.
It should be noted that the prefix SC is only used for Companies House internal recording and that the company's certificate of incorporation will not display the prefix SC.
Welsh company numbers
Welsh companies do not have any special reference in their company numbers to distinguish them from their English counterparts. Welsh companies are however able to replace the word limited and ltd at the end of their company name with either cyfyngedig or cyf.
