Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Shelf company definition

What does Shelf company mean? A shelf company (also called an off‑the‑shelf or ready‑made company) is a pre‑incorporated, dormant private company held by a formation agent and later sold to a client needing an immediately available corporate vehicle. The term is descriptive, not defined in legislation or case law, and is used consistently across England & Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland. The company will already be registered at companies house (UK) or the Companies Registration Office (Ireland), usually with standard/model articles, a nominal issued share capital, an agent-provided subscriber, and no trading history, assets or liabilities. On acquisition, the buyer typically changes the...

Procedures under CA 2006 and ECCTA 2023 for buying and tailoring UK shelf companies: transfers, appointments, filings, articles, share issues, trading certificate, accounting reference date, PSC and trading disclosures

Published by a LexisNexis Corporate expert

Practice notes

A person wishing to set up a new company has the following options:

Incorporate a new company in line with the Companies act 2006 (CA 2006), configuring it on incorporation to satisfy its particular requirements (a tailor-made company); or
Acquire a ready-made, ‘off-the-shelf’ company (ie a company already incorporated that has never traded, a ‘shelf company’) from a company formation agent and then adapt it to meet those requirements.

The actions involved in buying and customising a shelf company are set out below. For information on forming a tailor-made company, refer to Practice Note: Incorporating a company...

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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