Company name checker
Check your business name availability for free
How do I check if a company name is available?
The importance of checking company names
Why it’s crucial to verify the availability of a company name
You might want to check your business name before you register your company or start any work on your brand. It only takes a few minutes, but a unique and memorable name can potentially save you a lot of time and money.
Check Companies House database
You can also search the Companies House website directly for your preferred business name. It’s worth checking for similar names too, because they don’t allow names that are “too like” existing names.
Search the Internet
It’s also useful to do a general search online, to make sure there aren’t any well-known international businesses with the same name, and that you’re able to claim the name for your social media.
Guidelines and regulations
- A company name must include the word “Limited” or “Ltd”. For companies registered in Wales, you may choose to use the Welsh equivalents “Cyfyngedig” and “Cyf”.
- Names like “Absolutely No Nonsense Admin Ltd” and “Absolutely No Nonsense Admin Limited” are considered to be the same. You can’t register a “same as” name for a new company unless it’s directly related to the company of the same name (i.e. part of the same group of companies), or unless you have a written confirmation that the existing company doesn’t object to you using the same name.
- If you register a company with a name that’s too similar to another company’s name (these company names are known as “too like” names) and the other company makes an official claim for the name, you will have to change your business name to something different. The complaint needs to be made to Companies House, and Companies House will decide if you need to comply or not. Example: “Lenny the Lizard Roller Skates Rent” and “Lenny Lizard Roller Sk8s RNT” will probably be considered “Too like”
- The name cannot be offensive
- Your company name cannot suggest any sort of accreditation or connection to a government body, unless you get permission from an authority in question.
You can use any name that’s not taken and doesn’t break the basic rules of naming a business. You can check HMRC’s guidelines for full details about naming your company.
In certain cases, yes, you might be able to omit the word “Limited” in the name of your company. This is possible when your company is a registered charity or limited by guarantee and your articles of association say your company:
- promotes or regulates commerce, art, science, education, religion, charity or any profession
- cannot pay its shareholders, for example through dividends
- requires each shareholder to contribute to company assets if it’s wound up during their membership, or within a year of them stopping being a shareholder
You will have to officially form a company in order to reserve a name so nobody else can take it. However, if you have no plans of trading just yet but still want to have the company name registered, you can report your company as dormant to HMRC. This way, your business will officially exist and have the name “reserved” for you in the future, but you won’t have to submit annual reports and tax returns until you decide to start trading.
No. A company registered in the UK at Companies House should have its own unique name. As mentioned above, there might be situations where two companies can have very similar names, but in such cases the newer company must either be related to the older one (e.g. in the same group of companies), or have written permission to use the same or very similar name.
ANNA’s free company name checker has access to Companies House database of UK businesses. All you need to do is enter the name of the business you want to register in the form above, and hit “Check”. We’ll look it up in the Companies House database and instantly let you know if a business with that name already exists or not.
If you want to safeguard your desired company name, it’s best to also register it as a trade mark. This is a separate activity from registering a business, and you might benefit from it in the long run.
If the business name you want is unavailable, try checking a few variations. Our free company name checker can generate a few variations of the name for you that you can also check straight away. Also, if the name you wanted is already taken, but you still want that specific name, it might be worth looking up if the company registered with that name is active and who the owner is – this information is publicly available on the Companies House website, along with the company’s contact information. If the company is dormant, you might be able to get written permission from the owner to go ahead and use that name, or a very similar one.
Check it using a company name checker like ours – it’s free and gives you an instant answer.
Aside from the registered name of your business, you might hear the terms “business name” and “trading name”, often used interchangeably. A trading name (or a business name) is any other name that you can use in your business practice. It doesn’t have to be the same as the registered name of your business, however, it has to be different from any registered trademark that you don’t have formal permission to use.
Found the name you like?
Register it with ANNA
