Companies House filings explained: how club accounts reach PSRwatch
Companies House is the UK's public register of companies, where every English club must file annual accounts - audited revenue, wages, amortisation and profit or loss, free to download. Filings can arrive up to nine months after a financial year ends, so they always describe a past season. PSRwatch uses them as the audited anchor for each club's model, then estimates forward using transfer and wage data.
Private companies file within nine months of their year-end.
Hull City: 2024/25 accounts vs PSRwatch 2026/27 estimate.
Anyone can download club accounts from Companies House.
Every English club is a company, and every company must file accounts at Companies House, the UK's public register of companies. Those filings - free for anyone to download - are the bedrock of football-finance analysis. They are where "reported" numbers become audited ones: revenue, wages, transfer-fee amortisation, profit or loss, debt and owner funding, signed off and on the public record.
PSRwatch is built on top of them. But filings have one enormous limitation that shapes how any honest PSR site must work: they arrive late. Accounts describe a season that finished months earlier, filed up to nine months after the financial year-end. By the time they land, one or two transfer windows have already happened.
Why it matters
Squad-cost rules are assessed on current-season numbers, but the newest audited evidence is always at least a season old. Anyone telling you a club's exact live PSR position from Companies House alone is describing the past. The filings are the truth, but they are the truth about last year.
That gap is where estimation lives. The honest approach is to anchor on the last filed accounts, then model forward: add the transfers, contracts and wage changes that have happened since, and label the result an estimate. The filings then act as the annual exam - when new accounts arrive, every forward estimate gets marked against audited reality.
A worked example
Hull City shows the lag at its most extreme in the current PSRwatch model. The club's latest filed accounts cover 2024/25, showing revenue of about £25.8m. But PSRwatch's 2026/27 forecast puts football income at about £127m - a completely different financial world, because everything about the club's circumstances has changed since that season was played and filed. Both figures: the first is filed fact, the second a labelled PSRwatch estimate.
This is the general pattern, not an exception. Promotion, European qualification, a new stadium deal or a broadcast-cycle change can make the latest filing a poor guide to the current season - which is precisely why filings must be a foundation, not a live feed.
How PSRwatch uses this
PSRwatch syncs filings from Companies House for all tracked clubs and extracts the anchor numbers: revenue by stream where disclosed, wage costs, player-registration amortisation, profit or loss, and owner funding. Those anchors calibrate the club's model - the starting point every forward estimate is built from.
On top of that base, provider transfer and wage data supply the movement: signings, sales, loans and contract changes since the accounts date. The two layers are combined into the club's squad-cost forecast, with each input graded official, reported or modelled. When a new filing arrives, PSRwatch reconciles: prior estimates are compared with the audited numbers and the model's assumptions are corrected. The full loop is described in the methodology, and you can see the outputs on any club page or stress-test them in the calculator.
Common misunderstandings
- "Companies House shows a club's PSR position." It shows audited history. The current season's squad-cost position must be estimated until the next accounts arrive.
- "Accounts reveal transfer fees." Rarely for individual deals. Filings show aggregate spending on player registrations - enough to sanity-check estimates, not to price a specific signing.
- "The wage bill in the accounts is the players' wages." The staff-costs line covers everyone the company employs, including coaching, executive and office staff. Player wages must be estimated from it, not read off it.
- "A club that files late is hiding something." Sometimes it is just administration, though persistent lateness draws penalties and - fairly or not - attention. The filing deadline is a legal one, not a football one.
- "Filed accounts settle every argument." They settle last season's arguments. The live debates - this window's headroom, this season's ratio - still run on labelled estimates, which is exactly what PSRwatch publishes.
Related pages
- Hull City - the live PSRwatch estimate page for one of the clubs used above.
- The squad-cost calculator - change the fee, contract length and wages yourself and watch the ratio move.
- How PSRwatch builds its numbers - sources, assumptions and what "estimate" means here.
- What are undisclosed transfer fees?
- Old PSR vs the squad-cost rules
- What is the Premier League squad-cost rule?
Frequently asked questions
What can I find in a club's Companies House filing?
Audited revenue, staff costs, player-registration amortisation, profit or loss, debt and owner funding - for a season that ended months before the filing date.
Why can't filings track the transfer window?
They are published up to nine months after the year-end, so one or two windows have usually passed. Live squad-cost positions must be estimated and reconciled later.
Do accounts show what a club paid for each player?
Almost never. They show aggregate spending on registrations, which is useful for checking estimates but not for pricing individual deals.
How does PSRwatch use new filings?
As an annual reconciliation: prior estimates are compared against the audited numbers, model assumptions are corrected, and the club's forward forecast is rebuilt.
Are club accounts really free to access?
Yes. Companies House filings are public documents - anyone can search a club's company name and download its accounts.
Methodology
PSRwatch figures are independent estimates built from filed accounts, provider transfer and wage data, and PSRwatch modelling. They are not official Premier League, EFL or UEFA calculations. Where a fee or wage is unconfirmed we say so, and undisclosed fees are never presented as real numbers.
Sources
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