The only cost you have to pay to set up an SPV is the Companies House incorporation fee. That fee is £100 if you file online or through filing software, and £124 if you file on paper. Everything else you will be quoted (formation agent packages, registered office services, accountant setup fees, bookkeeping subscriptions) is optional, market-priced and negotiable. That single distinction explains why the answer to "how much does it cost to set up an SPV" ranges from £100 to well over £1,000 depending on who you ask.
Two costs get muddled in most quotes, so it is worth splitting them at the outset. Setting the company up is a one-off event with a hard statutory floor of £100. Keeping it going afterwards is an annual bill (accounts, the corporation tax return, the £50 confirmation statement) that has nothing to do with formation and is set out in full in the property company running costs annual budget. Everything below is the first of those two, priced route by route. If the prior question of whether to use a company at all is still open, the SPV company hub and the SPV structure and tax guide answer that one.
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What you must pay: the Companies House fee
Companies House charges a flat fee to incorporate a private company limited by shares. There is one scale, and it does not vary by what the company will do, how many shares it issues, or whether it will hold property:
| Filing route | Incorporation fee |
|---|---|
| Online (Companies House web service or filing software) | £100 |
| Paper (form IN01 by post) | £124 |
These are the fees published on the Companies House fees page on gov.uk. There is no cheaper tier, no property discount and no way to avoid the fee if you want a registered company. The paper route costs £24 more and is materially slower, so unless you have a specific reason to file on paper (an unusual constitution, for example), file online.
What the £100 buys is the incorporation itself: the company comes into existence, gets a registered number and a certificate of incorporation, and appears on the public register. It does not buy advice, a bank account, or any help getting the details right. For the filing mechanics (the IN01 details, the PSC statement, the identity verification step now required of directors and people with significant control), see our step-by-step guide to setting up a property investment company. Identity verification through the Companies House service is free; an agent may charge to do it for you.
One recurring fee is worth naming here purely so you do not confuse it with the formation cost. The confirmation statement costs £50 a year online (£110 on paper), and it is the first compulsory annual payment the company will make. It is not part of the setup cost, and the wider annual budget (accounts, corporation tax return, bookkeeping) sits on the running costs page, not here.
How much to form a property limited company, compared with any other company
Exactly the same. A property SPV is an ordinary private company limited by shares, so there is no property scale, no investor surcharge and no separate SPV register. The cost difference between forming a property company and forming a consultancy is not in the fee, it is in the decisions taken before the fee is paid: a SIC code the mortgage lender will accept, share classes that allow dividends to be split later, and a clear record of the deposit going in as a director loan rather than share capital. None of those cost anything extra to get right at the point of filing.
SPV company set up cost above the filing fee: agent and accountant fees
Above the £100, every cost is discretionary. Three routes dominate, and the cost to set up SPV vehicles varies almost entirely by which of them you pick.
Do it yourself. You complete the incorporation application on the Companies House service, choose your own SIC code, use your home address as the registered office, and pay £100. This is genuinely the cheapest route and it is not reckless: thousands of landlords do it every year. The risk is not the filing, it is the decisions inside it. A wrong SIC code can cost you a mortgage decision in principle, and a single ordinary share class issued to one person is awkward to restructure later if you wanted to split dividends with a spouse.
Formation agent. An agent files the company for you through software, usually within hours, and sells add-ons around it: a registered office address, a service address, a company seal and printed certificates, and frequently a bank account referral. Agent packages are the cheapest way to buy speed and a registered office in one transaction. What they do not buy is advice: an agent takes the SIC code and share structure you give them and files it. Note that "free formation" offers still recover the £100 statutory fee somewhere, usually inside a bundled banking or accountancy contract.
Accountant-led setup. An accountant decides the structure before the company is filed: the SIC code, the number and class of shares, who holds them, who is a director, where the registered office sits, and how the deposit money will be recorded as a director loan rather than share capital. The filing is the last step, not the first. This costs the most and it is the only route that includes advice, which is why it makes sense where a portfolio, a spouse, or a mortgage application is involved.
DIY versus formation agent versus accountant: what each route covers
| Cost item | DIY (Companies House direct) | Formation agent | Accountant-led setup |
|---|---|---|---|
| Companies House filing fee | £100 online (£124 paper), paid by you | Often bundled into the headline price | Often bundled, confirm in writing |
| Registered office (if not your home address) | Separate purchase | Sometimes bundled or upsold | Sometimes included in the fee |
| SIC code and structure advice | None, self-researched | Minimal, they file what you give them | Included |
| Share structure and alphabet shares | Self-managed | Not usually offered | Included or advised |
| Bank account introduction | Self-managed | Sometimes offered | Sometimes offered |
| Corporation tax registration | Free, automatic on incorporation | Free, automatic | Free, usually confirmed for you |
| Compliance calendar and bookkeeping setup | Self-managed | Not included | Included or advised |
| Typical year-one cash cost | Lowest: the fee plus your own time | Low to mid | Mid to higher, but includes advice |
Only the £100 and £124 figures in that table are fixed by law. Every other price is a market rate, so treat the "typical" row as a shape rather than a quote, and ask any provider to itemise which of these lines their fee actually covers.
What does an SPV cost in year one? A worked example
A landlord incorporates a single SPV in September to buy one buy-to-let flat, with a 31 March year end. They use an accountant for the setup, use a registered office service because they do not want their home address on the public register, and start bookkeeping software from month one. Their year-one setup spend looks like this:
| Item | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Companies House incorporation fee | £100 | Filed online. Fixed by law, £124 if paper |
| Accountant setup and structuring fee | Market rate, quoted | SIC code, share classes, director loan record, registered office, tax registrations |
| Registered office service | Market rate, annual | Optional. £0 if you use your own address |
| Identity verification (director and PSC) | £0 | Free through the Companies House service; an agent may charge |
| Corporation tax registration | £0 | Automatic on incorporation |
| Business bank account opening | £0 | Most SPV-friendly accounts are free to open; some charge a monthly fee later |
| Bookkeeping software, 7 months to year end | Monthly subscription x 7 | Optional in year one if the company holds one property |
| Year-one setup total | £100 plus whichever optional lines you buy | Illustrative only |
The point of laying it out this way is that the fixed part of the bill is tiny and the variable part is entirely under your control. A landlord who files themselves, uses their home address and runs a spreadsheet has a year-one formation cost of £100 exactly. A landlord who buys advice, an address and software has a bill in the hundreds. Both are legitimate; they buy different amounts of certainty and different amounts of your own time.
Two honest caveats. First, this stops at "what getting started costs". The company will then incur an annual run rate: the £50 confirmation statement plus accounts, the corporation tax return and any bookkeeping, all set out on the running costs page. Second, formation costs incurred before the company existed are normally treated as pre-incorporation expenditure that the company can reimburse and, where the expenditure is of a revenue nature incurred for the purpose of the business, deduct. Which of your early costs qualify is covered in limited company buy-to-let allowable expenses, and HMRC's position on pre-trading expenditure sits in the Business Income Manual.
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The cost that actually decides it, and how to model it
The formation fee is the small number. For a landlord forming an SPV to buy a new property, £100 is genuinely the whole entry ticket, and the decision turns on the ongoing tax comparison rather than the setup. For a landlord moving existing property into a company, the setup cost is dwarfed by two one-off charges that have nothing to do with Companies House.
- Stamp duty land tax on the transfer. Selling a personally-owned property to your own company is a sale at market value for SDLT, and the company pays at the higher rates for additional dwellings. On a single £250,000 rental, that is a five-figure charge against a £100 formation fee.
- Capital gains tax on the disposal. The transfer is a disposal by you at market value, taxable at the residential rates, unless a relief such as section 162 incorporation relief applies to the facts.
That is the arithmetic worth spending time on, and it is portfolio-specific: the answer moves with your gain, your mortgage interest, your marginal rate and how long you intend to hold. Our incorporation cost calculator models it directly, taking the SDLT on transfer, the CGT exposure and the annual tax difference against the section 24 position, and returning the payback period on the whole exercise. Run it before you pay the £100, because if the transfer costs do not pay back, the formation fee was never the question. The reliefs and the SDLT mechanics are covered in section 162 incorporation relief and SDLT on incorporation.
What is not included here, and where to find it
- Ongoing annual running costs. Accounts, the corporation tax return, bookkeeping, the £50 confirmation statement and insurance all sit in the annual running costs budget, not in this page's totals.
- How to actually file the company. The IN01 details, PSC statement, identity verification and post-incorporation steps are in how to set up a property investment company.
- Which SIC code to register. Lender acceptance turns on this, and the detail is in the SIC code guide for an SPV property company. It is a free decision at formation and a nuisance to change later.
- Whether the structure is right at all. Share classes, multiple companies and holding structures are covered in property investment company structure planning.
- The cost of closing the company again. If the SPV turns out to be the wrong vehicle, dissolution is cheap (a £13 online DS01) but the tax treatment of the final distributions is not automatic. See how to close a property limited company.
The short answer
£100 online, £124 on paper, and everything else is optional. If a quote for setting up your SPV is materially higher than that, the difference is buying you advice, an address, speed or software, and you are entitled to see which. The formation fee is almost never the number that decides whether a property company is the right structure. The tax comparison is, and that is where the effort (and the calculator) belongs.
Companies House publishes the full fee schedule and its guidance on incorporation and the life of a company on gov.uk, and the statutory framework for registering a company sits in Part 2 of the Companies Act 2006. Companies House fees are set by regulations and do change, so check the current schedule before you budget.