If you run a limited company and pay yourself in dividends, your next Self Assessment return has new boxes you cannot skip. From the 2025/26 tax year, directors of close companies must report the company's name, its registration number, the dividends they took, and their shareholding. Leave the boxes blank and HMRC can charge a penalty. The return covering 2025/26 is due online by 31 January 2027.
TL;DR: From 2025/26, close company directors must complete new Self Assessment boxes: company name, registration number, dividends received (even if nil), and highest percentage shareholding (even if nil). A separate page is needed for each directorship, and HMRC can charge a £60 penalty for missing the information.
What Has Changed on the 2025/26 Self Assessment Return?
HMRC has added new questions to the employment pages (the SA102) of the Self Assessment return, aimed specifically at directors of close companies. From the 2025/26 tax year onwards, if you were a director of a close company at any point in the year, you have to give details HMRC did not previously ask for on the personal return.
The change comes from regulations that took effect for 2025/26 and does not affect the 2024/25 returns being filed now. What we see most often is directors who assume dividends are simply a figure on the main return. That figure now needs supporting detail attached to it, company by company.
The requirement sits alongside a separate March 2026 consultation on reporting company payments to participators, which is still only a proposal. The Self Assessment boxes, by contrast, already apply.
Who Counts as a Close Company Director?
A close company is one controlled by its directors, or by five or fewer participators (HMRC Company Taxation Manual, 2026). In practice, nearly every private limited company in the UK meets that test, so most owner-managed businesses are caught.
There are over 5.4 million companies on the Companies House register (GOV.UK, 2025), and the great majority are private companies controlled by a small number of people. If you are a director and shareholder of your own trading company, the rules apply to you.
The obligation is tied to being a director during the year. You complete the reporting even if you took no salary from the company, because the requirement attaches to the directorship, not to a pay packet.
What Exactly Do You Have to Report?
For each close company where you held a directorship, the employment pages now ask for four things: the company name, its registration number as shown at Companies House, the dividend income you received from that company, and the highest percentage of share capital you held during the year (ICAS, 2026).
Two points catch people out. First, you enter the dividend and shareholding figures even where the answer is zero, so a blank box is not the same as a nil return. Second, if your stake changed mid-year, say through a share transfer, you report the highest percentage you held at any point, not the figure at year-end.
You also complete a separate page for each directorship. A director of three close companies fills in three sets of boxes, not one combined entry.
How Is the £60 Penalty Applied?
HMRC can charge a £60 penalty where a director fails to provide the required information on the return. The Association of Taxation Technicians reads the rules as allowing only one £60 penalty per tax return for the additional information, rather than a separate charge for each missing box or each company (ATT, 2026).
The professional bodies have asked HMRC to apply a soft-landing while the detail is clarified, and at the time of writing HMRC has not confirmed whether it will. In our experience, a fixed penalty on a first return under new rules is the kind of thing that gets challenged, so keeping evidence of a reasonable attempt to comply is worth doing.
The bigger risk is not the £60 itself but the follow-up questions that incomplete director information can prompt from HMRC.
Why HMRC Wants This Detail
The purpose is visibility. HMRC already sees salaries through payroll (RTI) and total dividend income on the main return, but not which company paid what, or how much of it a given director owns. The new boxes close that gap for owner-managed companies.
One question clients always ask is whether the dividend figure needs to match anything. It does. The amount on your Self Assessment should reconcile to the dividends declared in your company's year-end accounts and its corporation tax position. A mismatch between what the company recorded paying and what the director recorded receiving is exactly what this data lets HMRC spot.
Around 12 million Self Assessment returns are filed each year (GOV.UK, 2025), and company directors are a large slice of that population.
What Should You Do Before You File?
Start with your paperwork now rather than in January. Pull together each dividend voucher for 2025/26, confirm the exact company registration numbers, and note your shareholding percentage and any changes during the year. If you hold shares in more than one company, list them separately.
Check that the dividends you paid yourself are properly documented, with board minutes and vouchers, and that they were covered by distributable profits. The new reporting does not change the dividend rules, but it does put the figures under a brighter light. The dividend allowance for 2025/26 is £500, with dividends above it taxed at 8.75%, 33.75% or 39.35% depending on your band (GOV.UK, 2026).
If you already run a clean salary-and-dividends setup with tidy records, this is mostly a data-entry exercise. If your records are patchy, the new boxes are a good reason to fix that before filing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this apply if I am a director but took no dividends?
Yes. If you were a director of a close company during 2025/26, you complete the boxes even where your dividend income and shareholding are nil. A zero is a valid answer; a blank box is a failure to provide the information.
What if I am a director of more than one company?
You complete a separate set of employment page boxes for each close company directorship. A director of several companies reports each one individually, with its own name, registration number, dividends and shareholding.
When is the 2025/26 return due?
The 2025/26 Self Assessment return is due by 31 October 2026 on paper, or 31 January 2027 if you file online. The new director boxes must be completed as part of that return. Most directors file online.
Will HMRC really charge £60 for a blank box?
HMRC has the power to charge a £60 penalty for failing to provide the required information. The professional bodies read the rules as one £60 charge per return, and have asked HMRC to apply a soft-landing for the first year. HMRC has not confirmed its approach, so complete the boxes rather than rely on leniency.
Is a director's loan the same as a dividend for this reporting?
No. The new boxes ask about dividend income and shareholding. Director's loan account movements are reported separately, and can trigger their own corporation tax charge if left outstanding. Keep the two clearly apart in your records.
Not sure whether your dividend records will stand up to the new Self Assessment boxes? Get in touch - we handle director tax returns for UK limited companies and can make sure your company details, dividends and shareholding are reported correctly before the 31 January deadline.