Corporation tax payment reference number

Each form of payment requires the inclusion of a corporation tax payment reference. The ‘payment reference’ is different to the unique taxpayer reference (‘UTR’) and is a 17-character reference for the accounting period to which the payment relates.

The corporation tax reference is usually printed on the payslip and other HMRC correspondence and consists in part of the unique taxpayer reference (UTR) number. If the company does not know the corporation tax reference number, HMRC should be contacted to confirm this. Failure to quote the payment reference number when making a payment may cause acknowledgement of the payment to be delayed, returned or allocated to the wrong accounting period.

Payment by Direct Debit

In order to pay by Direct Debit, the company has to be registered with