Understanding the B2Verify Trust Score

The Trust Score is the first number you see on a company's B2Verify page. It's a 0 – 100 rating that answers the simplest possible question about a UK company: does what's on the register line up with a real, active, compliant business – or is something off?

This guide unpacks what the score is built from, how to read it, and – maybe most importantly – what it isn't.

What the score is

Every UK company on Companies House has dozens of data points attached to it: status, filing history, directors, PSCs, registered address, SIC codes, charges, confirmation statements, accounts. A trained analyst can look across those data points and form a judgement in five to ten minutes.

The Trust Score is a structured summary of those public data points, expressed as a single number, computed deterministically from the register. It is not an analyst's judgement of the company — it is a reflection of how the registered data lines up against compliance and structural indicators. It aggregates nine distinct dimensions into a score between 0 and 100, and bands the result into three risk levels:

• 75 – 100 – Low risk. The company presents as an active, compliant trading entity with no obvious structural concerns.
• 49 – 74 – Medium risk. Something warrants a closer look – an overdue filing, a recent director change, a dormant account history inconsistent with trading claims, a virtual registered office, or several smaller signals stacking up.
• 0 – 48 – High risk. One or more serious issues: strike-off proposal, insolvency history, opaque corporate ownership, large adverse filings, or a cluster of structural red flags.

The score is advisory, not adjudicative. It tells you where to look first – not whether to trade.

The nine dimensions

1. Status

The single biggest factor. A company's status on Companies House – Active, Dormant, Active (Proposal to Strike Off), In Liquidation, Dissolved – tells you whether the entity is legally trading at all. Active companies score full marks here; anything else is penalised proportionally to severity.

2. Age

Older companies have longer track records and more filing history to verify against. Companies incorporated in the last twelve months aren't automatically penalised heavily – plenty of legitimate businesses are young – but the score reflects the reality that there's less to verify.

3. Compliance

Two concrete filings: the annual confirmation statement (CS01) and the annual accounts (AA). Both are statutory obligations. On time = full marks; overdue = reduced score; seriously overdue = substantial deduction. A company that's nine months late on its accounts is a company in breach of the Companies Act – and the register itself treats it that way.

4. Governance

A proxy for whether the company has a real operating structure: active officer count, presence of declared PSCs, completeness of declared information. A company with one director, no declared PSCs, and a corporate nominee as sole shareholder can still be a legitimate one-person consultancy – but the signal is materially different from a company with three directors, named individual PSCs, and full filing compliance.

5. Stability

How often do directors, PSCs and the registered address change? A single director change over ten years is noise. Three changes of registered office in a single year is a pattern. Stability measures the frequency of consequential changes over time – companies that churn these details frequently tend to have something they're managing around.

6. SIC coherence

SIC codes are the 5-digit industry classifications a company declares on its annual confirmation statement. A company can have up to four. Coherent coverage – all four within the same industry section – looks like a real business focused on a defined activity. Wildly divergent codes ("retail via internet" plus "real estate development" plus "management consultancy") are sometimes legitimate, often a holding company, and occasionally just copied from whoever filed the last confirmation statement without thinking.

7. Account quality

What type of accounts has the company filed most recently? Full accounts are gold standard – they include a profit-and-loss statement, directors' report and notes. Small-company and micro-entity accounts give you a balance sheet and little else. Dormant-company accounts mean the company isn't trading at all. For most small businesses, micro-entity or small-company is normal and expected. The score reflects what you can verify, not a moral judgement on the filing type.

8. Address quality

A handful of UK postcodes are used as the registered office for tens or hundreds of thousands of companies each – the classic high-density virtual offices. Using one of those addresses isn't illegitimate, but it is a signal: the registered office is legal correspondence only, not a real trading address. The score penalises use of specific known high-density virtual office postcodes, and penalises more heavily addresses Companies House itself has flagged as undeliverable.

9. Deductions

Four classes of issue that reduce the score directly, regardless of the other dimensions:

• Insolvency history – any record of administration, liquidation or CVA
• Charges – unsatisfied or part-satisfied registered charges against the company's assets
• Opaque corporate ownership – every declared PSC is a corporate entity, with no individual ultimate owner declared at this level. Holding-company structures are sometimes legitimate, but the absence of any named individual at the top of the PSC chain is a transparency signal.
• Gazette notices – GAZ1 / GAZ2 strike-off proposals in the filing history

Any one of these takes points off the score on top of whatever the other dimensions produce. Multiple deductions stack.

How to read the score in practice

Low risk (75 – 100)

Treat this as "no obvious concerns – but run the same checks you would on any counterparty before committing serious money." A Low risk score tells you the register is coherent: the company exists, is filing on time, has real declared humans behind it, and has no adverse filings. It does not tell you the company is a good business, a fair dealer, or financially strong enough to deliver the contract.

Medium risk (49 – 74)

The interesting band. Most real issues sit here. Look at the score breakdown on the company page – it lists each dimension with its own score and a reason. Typical Medium-risk patterns:

• An overdue confirmation statement that's only a few weeks late (compliance -5 to -10)
• A director turnover spike in the last two years
• Micro-entity accounts for a company that claims large-scale trading
• Virtual registered office + no other declared trading address
• Young company with limited filing history

Medium doesn't mean reject – it means the register is telling you a slightly different story from the one you're being told, and you should reconcile the two before contracting.

High risk (0 – 48)

Stop and do real diligence before transacting. A High risk score almost always means multiple signals stacking up: insolvency history + unsatisfied charges + an overdue CS01, for example. Occasionally a single very severe signal – Active (Proposal to Strike Off) – will land a score here on its own. Either way, High risk is a signal to walk away or to restructure the deal: upfront payment, escrow, personal guarantee, or simply a different supplier.

What the score isn't

It isn't a credit check. The Trust Score does not look at payment history, CCJs, or credit behaviour. For that, you need a credit reference agency (Experian, Creditsafe, Dun & Bradstreet). Use both – they measure different things.

It isn't a verdict on intent. No algorithm can tell you whether a human intends to deceive you. The Trust Score tells you whether the structural signals on the register look like a real operating business. An operator with poor intent who buys an aged dormant company and files quietly on time can absolutely score well. The score is a filter, not a conclusion.

It isn't regulatory compliance. If you have a statutory obligation to perform Customer Due Diligence (estate agents, lawyers, accountants, financial services), the Trust Score is input data, not a replacement for your CDD file. Keep your records.

It isn't static. The score recomputes daily and on demand whenever you re-open the report. Add the company to your monitored list and you'll get an email the next time the daily check picks up a material change on the register.

It isn't a determination of character. The score and any associated Notices reflect public-register patterns, not judgements about the conduct or intent of any individual or company.

What the Notices mean

Alongside the Trust Score, B2Verify may raise one of three Notices on a company or individual profile. Notices are observations, not accusations. Each one comes with the legitimate reasons it can occur and a recommendation to verify independently.

Identity Inconsistency Notice. Raised when an individual's date of birth is recorded differently across their company appointments (for example, May 1996 in one filing, December 1996 in another) while name, postcode, and year of birth all match. Inconsistencies may result from filing errors, accountant data entry, or historical record variations. Verification with the individual or their accountant is recommended for important decisions.

Recurring Pattern Notice. Raised when a director of a company was previously associated with another company in the same business sector that was dissolved within the 12 months before the current company was incorporated. This pattern can occur for legitimate reasons including business restructuring, sector consolidation, or recovery from financial difficulty — and can also warrant additional review before significant transactions.

Complex Ownership Structure. Raised when companies in an ownership chain hold Person with Significant Control positions in each other, creating a circular or deeply nested ownership structure. Such arrangements can be legitimate (group restructuring, holding company strategies) and can also obscure ultimate beneficial ownership. Direct verification of beneficial owners through the company itself is recommended.

What to do if a Notice is on your record. If you believe a Notice has been raised on your company or your personal record without sufficient context, submit a context statement using the Submit correction or objection request link beside the Notice. Our analysts review submissions within 5 business days and, where appropriate, attach your context to the profile.

Linked Companies — what they show

Each company profile includes a Linked Companies section with up to four sub-panels: Shared People, Shared Address, Recurring Pattern Notice, and Complex Ownership Structure. The first two are factual lists; the latter two only appear when their detection conditions are met.

Shared People lists every other company that shares an active officer with the current company. This is purely factual — many directors run multiple companies legitimately.

Shared Address indicates how many other companies share this registered address. This is common when the address belongs to an accountant or serviced office that hosts hundreds of clients. It is not, on its own, a risk indicator.

The two amber Notices appear only when the algorithm detects the specific structural patterns described above. They are amber-toned (not red) and use an information icon (not a warning triangle), reflecting that they are observations rather than verdicts.

A worked example

Take any UK company on the system. The walkthrough of a sample Trust Score report shows exactly what the breakdown looks like for a fictional high-risk supplier — each of the nine dimensions with its own sub-score and reason, the aggregated total, the risk band, and the specific filings or register entries each dimension is reading from. You can also search the live directory for any real UK company and see the same view for it.

That transparency is deliberate. The whole point of a Trust Score that isn't a black box is that when it says "Medium – 62/100," you can read exactly which signals moved the number in which direction, check those signals yourself on Companies House, and form your own judgement.

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Want to see a Trust Score for a specific UK company? Look it up on B2Verify – the breakdown is free, and you can add any business to your monitored list to get notified the moment its score changes.