Executive Summary

The businesses lining Britain's high streets are not always what they appear to be.

Our latest research, drawn from a decade of Companies House records, identifies 3,097 suspected shell companies operating through UK hairdressers, barber shops, beauty salons and convenience stores between 2016 and 2026. These businesses do not look like companies that traded and failed. They look like companies that were never meant to trade at all. Their lifespans are short, their names generic, their addresses shared, and their timings systematic.

Conservative modelling suggests that between £310 million and £464 million may have moved through these 3,097 companies alone. Applied across the three remaining high-risk cash-intensive sectors named in the UK's 2025 National Risk Assessment, the true figure for the past decade likely sits above £1 billion.

Reform is under way. Under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, Companies House has now taken action against over 158,000 companies in a single year. But the register still reveals a repeatable model of exploitation that is accelerating, not slowing, and that regulated firms across the wider economy will need to be equipped to detect. This report sets out what the data shows, what the patterns mean, and where the response needs to focus next.

Key Takeaways

The scale of the problem the research reveals:

• 3,097 suspected shell companies identified across two UK high street sectors between 2016 and 2026
• Average lifespan of just 170 to 194 days, compared to almost five years for the wider register of dissolved UK companies
• Suspected incorporations up more than 340% between 2016-2018 and 2023-2025
• £310 million to £464 million estimated to have moved through these companies alone
• Over £1 billion likely across all five cash-intensive sectors named in the 2025 National Risk Assessment
  
  

The scale of the response so far:

• 151,000 registered office addresses removed from the Companies House register in the year to March 2026
• 119,000 officer addresses removed in the same period
• Over 158,000 companies affected by Companies House compliance action in a single year
• 3.81 million personal codes issued under the new mandatory identity verification regime
  
  

Download the full report to read more about:

• The seven main findings shaping the picture of shell company activity across UK high streets
• The systematic patterns in lifespan, timing, geography, address sharing and business naming that make the model repeatable
• The scale of the threat, including the human and societal cost that extends well beyond the financial figures
• Why the current system enables abuse, and where the specific gaps in the framework still sit
• What Companies House has already done under ECCTA, and what the trajectory of the register still reveals
• What regulated firms should do next, and how the practical implications of the research translate into onboarding and monitoring decisions