Terms and Conditions — FreeFiler beta

# Terms and Conditions — FreeFiler beta

**Version v1.12 — effective from 15 September 2026**

## 1. The service

FreeFiler at freefiler.co.uk ("the service") is a beta service operated by Render Technologies Ltd ("we", "us"), company number 17088258. FreeFiler is part of Render Technologies Ltd. Your contract is with Render Technologies Ltd, not a separate FreeFiler company.

The service lets a UK micro-entity director generate and file a Corporation Tax return (CT600 + iXBRL accounts + iXBRL computation) to HMRC. It can also prepare the same micro-entity accounts for Companies House; clause 5 explains exactly what that can and cannot do today.

FreeFiler is in beta. We test it carefully, but beta software can contain mistakes, missing checks, confusing wording, or interruptions.

If we move the service, your account, or access to your filing records to another Render Technologies Ltd service or domain, including Render or `render.my`, we may redirect links here to it, and Render Technologies Ltd may continue to hold those records and provide access to them.

## 2. This is a business agreement

When HMRC gives notice to deliver a Company Tax Return, delivering it is your company's legal obligation, not your personal one. You use the service on the company's behalf, and this agreement is between us and the company.

It is therefore a business agreement rather than a consumer one. Nothing in these terms takes away a right the law gives you that cannot be excluded.

## 3. Who can use the service

You may use the service only if:

- you are a currently-appointed director of the company whose number you enter, and you are authorised to file its Corporation Tax return;
- the company is a UK micro-entity within the meaning of section 384A of the Companies Act 2006; and
- Companies House records the company as a private company registered under the Companies Act, and does not record it as dissolved.

We check the first of those before we will let you add a company. You pick yourself out of that company's public list of active directors and confirm the month and year of your birth and the date you were appointed; both must match what Companies House holds. Five failed attempts in a day lock that company to you for seven days.

That check can only use what Companies House publishes, and for some companies it cannot be done at all. If every director on the register is another company rather than a person, or if Companies House withholds the date of birth of every director it lists, there is nobody for you to pick and we cannot confirm you are a director. The service says so on screen and gives you our support address. That is about the public register rather than anything you have done wrong, and it is not something you can put right yourself.

We check the third when you enter the company number, from the register itself. If Companies House records the company as dissolved, or as a type we do not file for — a limited liability partnership, a public company, or any type the register does not show as a private company registered under the Companies Act — we refuse it there and tell you why. We also cannot file accounting periods that begin before the earliest year the service supports; the form says which years those are.

Secretaries, accountants and bookkeepers cannot use the service at present, because only a currently-appointed director can pass that check. Filing for a company you are not a director of is not something the service supports.

By using the service you confirm that the conditions above are met.

## 4. What you pay

FreeFiler is free of charge. There is no fee, no payment step, and nothing to refund, because there is nothing to pay. We do not ask for card details and we do not hold any.

## 5. Companies House accounts — what the service can and cannot do today

The service can prepare the same micro-entity accounts for Companies House and send them from your account page. Where that filing also owes HMRC a Corporation Tax return, the accounts can only be sent once HMRC has accepted that return. The two filings are separate obligations sent to two separate places: the accounts are owed to Companies House for each financial year, and the tax return is owed to HMRC when HMRC gives notice.

**Companies House filing is not switched on for real filings yet.** Sends made through the service today reach only Companies House's test service. Nothing sent through the test service reaches the public register, and it does not discharge your company's duty to file its accounts. Until we publish a new version of these terms saying otherwise, you must still file your accounts with Companies House yourself.

**Sending accounts to Companies House is always free**, as is everything else about this service.

Companies House does not accept accounts at the moment you send them. It answers with a receipt and a submission number, and gives its decision after it has checked them. A receipt means "received", not "accepted" and not "on the register".

Accounts sent to Companies House stay on file there even if amended accounts follow, so the service refuses a second send once accounts have reached the gateway, or may have. If Companies House rejects the accounts, nothing has landed on the register and you can put them right and send again. If we cannot tell whether a send arrived, we will say so plainly and ask you not to try again while we check with Companies House.

## 6. Your responsibilities

Before you submit, review what the service shows you and check that the filing is complete and accurate for your company. You remain responsible for the Corporation Tax return you submit. The return must include a declaration that it is correct and complete. Mistakes in what you enter flow into the filing, and what HMRC receives is the filing as submitted, not the form you saw on screen.

The service is not tax, accounting, legal, or professional advice. We help you assemble and transmit a return that meets HMRC's technical requirements; we do not warrant that the return is correct as a matter of UK tax law. If you are unsure whether your company qualifies, whether the figures are right, or whether the filing is suitable, use HMRC's own services or take professional advice before you submit.

## 7. HMRC's role

The return is delivered to HMRC. We transmit on your behalf and pass through HMRC's response without amending, redacting, or otherwise altering the bytes HMRC returns.

HMRC may reject, question, or later enquire into a return. Acceptance by HMRC does not mean HMRC has agreed the tax position is correct.

## 8. Your data, and the one promise we want you to read

**We never sell your data, and we never hand your details or your figures to another business for that business's own purposes.** The only companies that touch your data are the suppliers listed in our Privacy Policy, who run parts of the service on our instructions and may not use your data for anything else — and HMRC and Companies House, who are the whole point of filing.

We hold your account details, the companies you have added, your drafts, your submitted filing records, evidence of any Companies House send, an internal record of how the form was used, and — during early beta — monitoring evidence about your filing journey. We hold them so the service can prepare, submit, show, support, debug, check, and improve your filings. Your company's own Companies House authentication code is not among them: it is typed for a single send and is never saved.

You can hide any filing or draft from your account list at any time. Hiding never removes anything, and you can bring it back. A filing that has been submitted cannot be deleted, by you or by us — it is the record of what was sent to HMRC.

To remove the figures you entered, delete your account from your `/account` page. You get a seven-day grace period and an export of your data to download first. When the deletion goes through, we delete your login, your account, and your company memberships, and we unlink the filings you submitted so they are no longer connected to you. Your drafts are deleted with them, unless another director of the same company still has an account — in which case that company's drafts stay with them.

What we cannot do is edit the filed documents themselves. A Corporation Tax return names the company and the person who made its declaration, and we keep the exact bytes we sent, so those names stay in the retained evidence. Altering it would destroy the only proof of what was filed.

Our Privacy Policy at `/privacy` explains all of this in full, including the lawful bases we rely on under UK GDPR: Article 6(1)(b), performance of a contract, for everything needed to provide the service, and Article 6(1)(a), consent, for marketing only.

## 9. How long we keep it

We keep your account, your drafts, and your filing records for as long as you have an account with us. Nothing is deleted automatically after a set period. Deletion happens when you delete your account, as described in clause 8.

What survives account deletion is the evidence of what was sent: the generated CT600 XML, the iXBRL accounts and computation, the GovTalk envelope, the IRmark, timestamps, HMRC's response, any Companies House send evidence, and a note of which version of our source material was in effect. We keep it so a filing can still be proved and reconstructed years later if HMRC, Companies House, or you ever need it. It is no longer connected to your account, but as clause 8 says, the documents themselves still carry the names the filing had to carry.

One exception we would rather state than hide: the internal record of how the form was used, described in the Privacy Policy, is not yet removed by account deletion and is not yet deleted on a timer. If you want it deleted, write to privacy@freefiler.co.uk and we will delete it.

## 10. Partner offers

The service shows no partner or affiliate offers today, and none will be shown at launch. If we introduce them later, all of the following will hold: you will never have to use one to file; we will say plainly next to any offer if we are paid for it; and we will not share your personal details or your filing data with a partner unless you choose that offer or give us clear permission for that named partner.

**If we ever suggest a partner to you, we will decide what to show from your company's public profile only — never from your turnover, your profit, your tax, or any other figure from your return.** That is permanent, not a beta position.

## 11. Our liability

To the extent permitted by law, our total liability to you for any loss arising out of your use of the service is capped at the amount you have paid us for the filing the loss relates to.

Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.

## 12. Service availability

We aim to keep the service available but do not guarantee uninterrupted access. If HMRC's systems are unavailable or a filing result is unclear, we may pause the filing for review before any retry. We cannot guarantee that HMRC will accept a filing.

## 13. Accepting these terms, and changes to them

You must accept these terms when you create an account.

You also confirm them again at the moment that matters. When you commit to submitting a filing, the confirmation you give is stamped with the version of these terms in force at that moment. If we publish a new version before you submit, a confirmation you gave under the old one is not carried forward: the service asks you to confirm again against the current version.

We may amend these terms. When we do, we publish a new version here, and the version number and date at the top of this page move.

## 14. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. Disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

## 15. Who we are, and how to reach us

The service is operated by Render Technologies Ltd, company number 17088258, registered in England and Wales. Registered office: 39 Islingword Road, Brighton, BN2 9SF.

For support questions, write to support@freefiler.co.uk. For security concerns, write to security@freefiler.co.uk. For complaints, write to complaints@freefiler.co.uk. For privacy requests, write to privacy@freefiler.co.uk.