https://www.noxia.co.uk/field-notes/your-payment-record-goes-in-the-directors-report · printed from noxia.co.uk · sources checked 23 September 2026
Field note · What we found
Your payment record now goes in the directors’ report.
Payment performance has been publicly reportable for years, on a service most people have never opened. Moving it into the directors’ report changes who reads it: auditors, lenders, buyers in due diligence, and anyone who pulls the accounts.
The short answer
The Companies (Directors’ Report) (Payment Reporting) Regulations 2025 came into force on 1 January 2026 and have effect for a company’s financial year beginning on or after that date. Large companies must disclose in the directors’ report: the payment period in their standard terms, any variations and how suppliers were told, the average days taken to pay, and the percentage and total value of payments falling in days 1–30, 31–60 and 61 onwards. Medium-sized companies and first financial years are exempt.
On this page · 5 sections
The disclosure that does the work is the band split, because an average conceals the tail and the bands do not.
Four things have to appear, and they are not interchangeable.
Why moving it changes it
Payment practices reporting already existed and already produced this data twice a year on a public service. The number of people who have voluntarily looked up a counterparty on it is small.
The directors' report is different in one specific way: it is where people already look. It goes to the auditor, it is filed with the accounts, it is read in due diligence, and a lender pulling a credit file gets it without deciding to go and find it. The obligation has barely changed; the audience has.
Three consequences, in order of who they hit
- If you are large, the number becomes a reputational fact. A 61-plus band of any size sits in a document your customers' procurement teams read, and — given the public sector payment test — one that affects whether you can bid.
- If you supply a large company, you can now read theirs. Before you sign a contract with 60-day terms, the directors' report tells you what they actually do with 60-day terms. That is a diligence step that costs one download.
- If you are medium-sized, you are exempt and should read it anyway, because the threshold moves with you and the first year of reporting is the one where the figure is whatever it happened to be.
What this does not tell you
It does not define "large" here, because that is the Companies Act definition applied through the accounts regulations, and a group structure can change the answer. If you are near the boundary that is a question for your accountant rather than for us.
Nor does it cover the separate payment practices reporting duty, which continues on its own cycle, or the proposed maximum payment term — at the time of writing a proposal rather than a rule, and we are not going to report it as one.
And it does not tell you what your own bands look like. That is the first thing to find out, and in most firms the data is in the ledger and has never been asked the question. The implied 30-day term is the other side of the same regime, and chasing is what happens when neither works.
Questions people actually ask
What must large companies report about payments from 2026?
In the directors’ report: the payment period in their standard contractual terms, any variations to those terms and how suppliers were notified, the average number of days taken to make qualifying payments, and the percentage and total value of payments made in days 1 to 30, days 31 to 60, and day 61 onwards, plus the percentage not paid within the agreed period.
When does payment reporting in the directors’ report start?
The Companies (Directors’ Report) (Payment Reporting) Regulations 2025 came into force on 1 January 2026 and have effect for financial years beginning on or after that date — so a company with a calendar financial year reports first on 2026.
Are medium-sized companies in scope?
No. The requirement applies to large companies as defined through the accounts regulations. Medium-sized companies are exempt, as is a company in its first financial year. A company near the boundary should check its position, because group structure can change the answer.
Why does it matter that this is in the directors’ report?
Because payment performance was already publicly reportable on a dedicated service that few people opened voluntarily. The directors’ report is filed with the accounts and read by auditors, lenders and buyers in due diligence, so the same data now reaches people who were not looking for it.
Sources
- The Companies (Directors’ Report) (Payment Reporting) Regulations 2025, SI 2025/1152, legislation.gov.uk, read 23 September 2026: in force 1 January 2026 and having effect “in respect of a company’s financial year beginning on or after 1st January 2026”. Required disclosures include the payment period specified in the company’s standard payment terms in its qualifying contracts, details of variations and supplier notification, “the average number of days taken to make such payments”, and the percentage and sum total of payments made within days 1–30, 31–60 and day 61 onwards, together with the percentage not made within the payment period. Medium-sized companies and a company’s first financial year are exempt. legislation.gov.uk ↗ — primary; the statutory instrument itself re-checked every 6 months
- Charles Russell Speechlys, “Payment Practices — the latest developments on reporting and late payments”, read 23 September 2026: “from 1 January 2026, large companies must include payment practices disclosures in their Directors’ Reports for financial years beginning on or after that date”; medium-sized companies and companies in their first financial year are exempt. Also notes a proposed 60-day maximum payment cap, which we have not treated as a rule because it is a proposal. charlesrussellspeechlys.com ↗ — secondary; a law firm’s summary, used to confirm the reading of the SI re-checked every 6 months
- The figure shows the three reporting bands with equal segments, because the regulations set the bands and not the distribution. It is a diagram of the disclosure, not data about any company. The separate payment practices reporting duty and the “large company” definition are outside this note. — a stated limit on the figure and the coverage above
Checked 23 September 2026. Next scheduled check 22 March 2027. Numbers that move — leaderboards, live indices — are re-checked every 30 days; annual datasets and rules in force every six months; dated research once a year. If something here has gone stale before we got to it, tell us and we will correct it and say what changed.
Cite this note
Noxia, “Your payment record now goes in the directors’ report”, Field notes, 23 September 2026; sources checked 23 September 2026. https://www.noxia.co.uk/field-notes/your-payment-record-goes-in-the-directors-report
Your ledger already knows your three bands. Nobody has asked it.
The percentage of your payments landing at 61-plus days is one query against data you already hold, and most firms discover it for the first time when somebody else publishes theirs. We build the query, the monthly figure, and the alert when a band moves.
Talk to us about thisRead next
What we found
Thirty days is already in the contract. You did not negotiate it.
Section 68 of the Procurement Act 2023 implies a 30-day payment term into public contracts. The authority must tell you without undue delay if it disputes an invoice — which most suppliers never ask it to do.
Getting started
Eighty-six hours a year chasing money you have already earned.
The Small Business Commissioner cites 86 non-productive hours spent chasing debt and 38 small businesses closing every day because of late payment. A bill now in the Lords caps terms at 60 days.
Supplier checks
Seven million people have until November to prove who they are.
Companies House estimates 6 to 7 million directors and controllers must verify by mid-November 2026. It is an offence to act as a director without doing so. Here is what changes for anyone who checks suppliers.