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There are rules in place which limit your options to change your company’s year end date. A company’s year end date is also known as its ‘accounting reference date’ and is set by reference to the date the company was incorporated. Under some circumstances it is possible to make a change to the year-end.

You can only change the year end for the current financial year or the one immediately before it. Making a change to a year-end date will also change the deadline for filing accounts.

There is no limit to the amount of times you can shorten a year-end date, but you can only extend the period to a maximum of 18 months once in every five years. The financial year can be extended more often under limited circumstances. For example, if the company has been placed in administration.

There is no reason for using one date over another, but the most common year-end dates are 32 December (to coincide with the end of the calendar year) or 31 March (to coincide with the end of the tax year).

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