Foreign and Commonwealth Office
This record does not describe a company, and the name it carries belongs to no existing organisation. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) was a United Kingdom ministerial department of the Crown, based at King Charles Street, London. It closed on 2 September 2020, when it merged with the Department for International Development (DFID) to form the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). The FCO’s page on GOV.UK now carries the notice “The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has closed. It’s been replaced by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)”, and the FCDO supplementary estimates memorandum 2020 to 2021 on GOV.UK states that on 2 September the FCO and DFID merged to form the new international department.
How the change was made, and why no registration number exists
The merger was a machinery-of-government change, not a corporate transaction. The Transfer of Functions (Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs) Order 2020 (SI 2020 No. 942) is an Order in Council made under sections 1 and 2 of the Ministers of the Crown Act 1975. On legislation.gov.uk it is recorded as made at the Court at Balmoral on 2 September 2020, laid before Parliament on 9 September 2020 and in force on 30 September 2020, and as making “provision in connection with the establishment of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office following the merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office”. Article 4 transferred the former Secretary of State’s functions, article 5 all property, rights and liabilities, and article 3 makes the new office “by that name a corporation sole”; article 2 draws its line at functions held “immediately before 2nd September 2020”. A department created and abolished this way is never incorporated, so the empty registration-number and incorporation-date fields on this profile are correct rather than missing. A Companies House name search run on 8 October 2026 returns results — the control shows the search works — but only unrelated private companies such as UK FOREIGN & COMMONWEALTH OFFICE LEGALISATION LIMITED (11635509, dissolved 24 March 2020). The status “Active” on this profile comes from the data-provider field named as its source, not from any register.
The United Arab Emirates country code on this record
The stored country is wrong: the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was a department of the United Kingdom government. The likeliest cause is that the record was built from a UK diplomatic post in the UAE. GOV.UK lists the British Embassy Abu Dhabi, at Al Hisn Street, Al Markaziyah West, PO Box 248, Abu Dhabi, and the British Embassy Dubai, at Al Seef Road, Bur Dubai, PO Box 65, Dubai, each shown as “Part of: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office”, the Dubai post carrying a British Consul General. A diplomatic or consular post is not a company and is not a separate legal person; it is part of the UK state. Article 6 of SI 2020 No. 942 reflects that by keeping immovable property outside the United Kingdom vested in a Secretary of State, held as a corporation sole.
Operating scale of the successor department
Figures for a department are appropriations of public money, not revenue. The FCDO annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025 (HC 1198, published 22 July 2025, audited by the National Audit Office) reports total outturn of £12,487.0 million against a total allocated budget of £12,868.0 million, an underspend of £381 million or 3.0 per cent, with resource DEL outturn of £8,606.0 million and capital DEL outturn of £2,651.0 million. It gives an average of 8,098.5 UK-based full-time-equivalent staff for 2024 to 2025 against 7,809.8 for 2023 to 2024, and 8,280.1 total staff FTE including agencies and other designated bodies; country-based staff at posts overseas are employed under local law and sit outside that UK-based figure. It records 282 officially designated overseas posts, of which 162 are embassies and high commissions and 64 are consulates, consulates-general and deputy high commissions.
Sources
- GOV.UK, Foreign & Commonwealth Office organisation page (closure notice). Retrieved 8 October 2026. www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-office
- GOV.UK, FCDO supplementary estimates memorandum 2020 to 2021 (merger date). Retrieved 8 October 2026.
- legislation.gov.uk, The Transfer of Functions (Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs) Order 2020, SI 2020 No. 942, made 2 September 2020. Retrieved 8 October 2026. www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/942/made
- GOV.UK, FCDO annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025, HC 1198, published 22 July 2025. Retrieved 8 October 2026.
- GOV.UK, British Embassy Abu Dhabi and British Embassy Dubai organisation pages. Retrieved 8 October 2026.
- Companies House company name search, control query run 8 October 2026.
- Company fundamentals
- Corporate linkage & group structures
- Digitized company financials
- Firmographics — websites, social profiles, revenue and employee estimates
Shareholders
Shareholders of Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Ownership does not arise. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office was a United Kingdom ministerial department, not a company: it had no share capital, no shareholders, no members and no persons with significant control. None of the usual data-availability labels — Full, Partial, Major shareholders only, Current only, Historical, Restricted, Not public or Not found — applies to it, because there is no ownership interest in a department of state for any register either to publish or to withhold. Saying “not found” would wrongly imply that such an interest exists and was simply not located.
The department was funded by money voted by Parliament and was accountable to Parliament, not to holders of an economic interest. Since 2 September 2020 its functions have sat with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, which is funded on the same basis: the FCDO annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025 records total outturn of £12,487.0 million against a Parliamentary budget of £12,868.0 million.
Ultimate beneficial ownership
There is no ultimate beneficial owner, and this is a legal conclusion rather than a gap in the data. A department of state is part of the Crown. The legal person that holds its property and enters its contracts is the Secretary of State, incorporated as a corporation sole: article 3 of the Transfer of Functions (Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs) Order 2020 (SI 2020 No. 942) provides that “the person who at the coming into force of this Order is the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs and any successor to that person is by that name a corporation sole”, and article 5 transferred to that office all property, rights and liabilities previously held by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. A corporation sole holds property in right of the office and not for personal benefit, so the individual office-holder is not a beneficial owner and must not be named as one.
Data availability
Not applicable. No beneficial-ownership register anywhere covers UK departments of state, and no UAE ownership rule is engaged, because the entity is neither a UK company nor a UAE company. The shareholder note stored on this record by the data provider describes filing with an Emirate’s Economic Department and disclosure by companies listed on DFM or ADX, or registered in the DIFC or ADGM free zones; it was generated from the incorrect country code on this profile and has no bearing on a UK department.
Sources
- legislation.gov.uk, The Transfer of Functions (Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs) Order 2020, SI 2020 No. 942, articles 3 and 5; made 2 September 2020, in force 30 September 2020. Retrieved 8 October 2026. www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/942/made
- GOV.UK, FCDO annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025, HC 1198, published 22 July 2025. Retrieved 8 October 2026.
- GOV.UK, Foreign & Commonwealth Office organisation page (closure notice). Retrieved 8 October 2026.
Officers
Directors and officers of Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office had no directors, company secretary, legal representatives or authorised signatories in the company-law sense, and no officer filing was ever due for it. A UK department is led by ministers appointed by the Sovereign on the Prime Minister’s advice, and staffed by civil servants appointed on merit through fair and open competition; none of them is appointed or removed by shareholders, and none of them can be disqualified by a company registrar. The correct availability classification is therefore not applicable rather than Not found: the officer concepts the classification is built for do not exist for this entity. Published information about the people in charge is nevertheless extensive, because ministerial appointments are announced on GOV.UK and senior officials are named in the department’s annual report and accounts laid before Parliament.
Recent changes, with the date each was checked
- Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs: the Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP, shown on the GOV.UK role page as “appointed Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs on 20 July 2026”. Checked on GOV.UK on 8 October 2026.
- Permanent Under-Secretary: Nick Dyer, shown on the GOV.UK FCDO organisation page as Interim Permanent Under-Secretary and Second Permanent Under-Secretary. Checked on GOV.UK on 8 October 2026. At 31 March 2025 the FCDO annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025 instead named Sir Oliver Robbins as Permanent Under-Secretary, with Nick Dyer as Second Permanent Under-Secretary.
- Earlier holders of the office, as listed on the same GOV.UK role page: the Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP (2025 to 2026), the Rt Hon David Lammy MP (2024 to 2025), the Rt Hon Lord Cameron (2023 to 2024), the Rt Hon James Cleverly MP (2022 to 2023), the Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss (2021 to 2022) and the Rt Hon Dominic Raab (2020 to 2021), who held the new office from the merger. Checked 8 October 2026.
Accountability for the department’s spending does not rest with a board. The FCDO annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025 records that the Permanent Under-Secretary is the department’s Principal Accounting Officer, that the Second Permanent Under-Secretary was appointed Additional Accounting Officer for official development assistance activity with effect from 3 July 2023, and that governance is maintained through a Management Board chaired by the Permanent Under-Secretary, which meets monthly.
Data availability
Not applicable for company-law officers. For the successor department, ministerial and senior-official information is published and effectively current only: GOV.UK shows present holders and a dated list of predecessors, while annual reports fix the senior team at each 31 March. Nationality, country of residence and correspondence address are not published for ministers or officials on any of the pages used here, and are recorded as not disclosed. Ministers and permanent secretaries change frequently, so the names above should be read only as at the dates stated and verified again before use.
Sources
- GOV.UK, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs role page. Checked 8 October 2026. www.gov.uk/government/ministers/secretary-of-state-for-foreign-commonwealth-and-development-affairs
- GOV.UK, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office organisation page, ministers and senior civil servants listing. Checked 8 October 2026. www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-development-office
- GOV.UK, FCDO annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025, HC 1198, published 22 July 2025, senior staff as at 31 March 2025. Retrieved 8 October 2026.
Group Structure
Group structure of Foreign and Commonwealth Office
There is no corporate group. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office had no parent company, no ultimate parent, no subsidiaries and no sister companies, because a department of the Crown is neither owned by nor the owner of any company. Its functions passed to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on 2 September 2020 through a machinery-of-government change effected by Order in Council, not through an acquisition or merger of undertakings; the Transfer of Functions (Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs) Order 2020 (SI 2020 No. 942) transferred the functions by article 4 and the property, rights and liabilities by article 5.
What the successor department has in place of a group is a set of sponsored public bodies whose relationships rest on statute and published framework documents rather than on shareholdings. The FCDO annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025 records that the Permanent Under-Secretary is accountable for one executive agency, Wilton Park; four executive non-departmental public bodies, namely the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the Great Britain-China Centre; and one advisory non-departmental public body, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact. It adds that the department also sponsors the British Council, a charity governed by Royal Charter which is both a public corporation and a non-departmental public body, and FCDO Services, a trading fund and executive agency, and that both of those sit outside the FCDO accounting boundary. The British Council received £162.5 million of core grant-in-aid in 2024 to 2025, of which £126.5 million was official development assistance.
One genuine company relationship exists. The same report states that the FCDO is the 100 per cent shareholder in British International Investment plc, describing it as a wholly owned self-financing public corporation held at arm’s length, with day-to-day operations and investment decisions independent of government, and records a further £400 million of capital annually managed expenditure invested in it during 2024 to 2025. A Companies House check on 8 October 2026 confirms BRITISH INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT PLC, company number 03877777, as active and incorporated on 8 December 1999.
Verified relationships
| Entity | Country | Registration number | Relationship | Ownership | Status | Information date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office | United Kingdom | Not a registered company | Successor department; the FCO’s functions, property, rights and liabilities transferred to this office | Not applicable | Operating | Merged 2 September 2020; Order in force 30 September 2020 |
| British International Investment plc | United Kingdom | 03877777 | Shareholding held by the FCDO | 100 per cent, per the FCDO annual report | Active on the register | Report year to 31 March 2025; register checked 8 October 2026 |
| Wilton Park | United Kingdom | Not a registered company | Executive agency of the FCDO | Not applicable | Operating | Year to 31 March 2025 |
| British Council | United Kingdom | Not a registered company; Royal Charter body | Sponsored public corporation and non-departmental public body, outside the FCDO accounting boundary | Not applicable | Operating | Year to 31 March 2025 |
| FCDO Services | United Kingdom | Not a registered company; trading fund | Sponsored trading fund and executive agency, outside the FCDO accounting boundary | Not applicable | Operating | Year to 31 March 2025 |
Only the British International Investment plc row describes a shareholding. Sponsorship and agency status are not ownership, and the table must not be read as a corporate ownership chain.
Data availability
Not applicable for corporate linkage, since a department of state has neither parent nor subsidiaries, and the provider note on this record claiming that no linkage is available because the company is small or operates as a single entity does not describe this entity at all. For the successor department’s arm’s-length bodies the published information is full in a different sense: the annual report and accounts lists every body inside and outside the accounting boundary, with core income, expenditure and staffing at Annex D. That is Parliamentary accountability data, not shareholding data.
Sources
- GOV.UK, FCDO annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025, HC 1198, published 22 July 2025, arm’s length bodies section. Retrieved 8 October 2026. www.gov.uk/government/publications/fcdo-annual-report-and-accounts-2024-to-2025
- legislation.gov.uk, The Transfer of Functions (Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs) Order 2020, SI 2020 No. 942, articles 4 and 5. Retrieved 8 October 2026. www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/942/made
- Companies House, BRITISH INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT PLC, company number 03877777. Checked 8 October 2026.
- GOV.UK, FCDO supplementary estimates memorandum 2020 to 2021 (merger date). Retrieved 8 October 2026.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What does Foreign and Commonwealth Office do?
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office was a United Kingdom ministerial department, not a company. It closed on 2 September 2020, when it merged with the Department for International Development to form the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), which now carries out the UK's diplomatic, consular and international development work. GOV.UK states that the FCO "has closed" and has been "replaced by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office". The FCDO annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025 records 282 officially designated overseas posts, of which 162 are embassies and high commissions. The country code United Arab Emirates on this record is wrong; the likeliest cause is that it was built from a UK diplomatic post in the UAE, and an embassy is part of the UK state rather than a company.
Who owns Foreign and Commonwealth Office?
None. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office had no share capital, no shareholders, no members and no persons with significant control, because it was a department of the Crown funded by money voted by Parliament. The legal person that held its property and contracts was the Secretary of State, incorporated as a corporation sole; article 3 of the Transfer of Functions (Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs) Order 2020 (SI 2020 No. 942) states this for the successor office, and article 5 transferred all property, rights and liabilities to it. No availability label such as "not public" or "not found" applies, because there is no ownership interest for a register to hold.
Who is Foreign and Commonwealth Office's UBO (Ultimate Beneficial Owner)?
There is no ultimate beneficial owner, and that is a legal conclusion rather than a gap in the data. A United Kingdom government department has no share capital and no economic interest that anyone can hold, so no natural person stands to benefit from its assets or controls it through ownership. Its property is held by the Secretary of State as a corporation sole, under article 3 of SI 2020 No. 942, and a corporation sole holds property in right of the office rather than for personal benefit; the individual office-holder is therefore not a UBO and must not be named as one. No beneficial-ownership register, in the UK or the UAE, covers departments of state.
Is Foreign and Commonwealth Office still an active company?
Foreign and Commonwealth Office's status on Company Data Enrichment is listed as active.
What is Foreign and Commonwealth Office's registered address?
The registered address on file for Foreign and Commonwealth Office is United Arab Emirates.
What is Foreign and Commonwealth Office's revenue?
A government department has no revenue; its spending is voted by Parliament. The successor department's annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025 (HC 1198, published 22 July 2025 and audited by the National Audit Office) reports total outturn of £12,487.0 million against a total allocated budget of £12,868.0 million, an underspend of £381 million or 3.0 per cent, with resource DEL outturn of £8,606.0 million and capital DEL outturn of £2,651.0 million. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office's own final annual report and accounts covered 2019 to 2020 and was published on 16 July 2020 (HC 553). These figures are appropriations of public money, not sales.
Is Foreign and Commonwealth Office listed on a stock exchange?
No. A United Kingdom department of state has no share capital and cannot be listed on any stock exchange, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office never was. The only company in this picture is a separate legal entity: British International Investment plc, Companies House number 03877777, in which the FCDO is the 100 per cent shareholder according to its annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025. Being wholly government-owned, it is an unlisted public limited company rather than a quoted one.
Who are the officers/directors of Foreign and Commonwealth Office?
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office had no directors, company secretary or legal representatives in the company-law sense. UK departments are led by ministers appointed by the Sovereign on the Prime Minister's advice and staffed by civil servants appointed on merit through fair and open competition, not by shareholders. For the successor department, GOV.UK showed the Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP as Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, appointed on 20 July 2026, and Nick Dyer as Interim Permanent Under-Secretary, both checked on 8 October 2026. The FCDO annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025 instead named Sir Oliver Robbins as Permanent Under-Secretary as at 31 March 2025. These holders change often, so treat each name only as at the date given.
Does Foreign and Commonwealth Office have a parent company or subsidiaries?
No. A department of state has no parent company and no subsidiaries. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office's functions, property, rights and liabilities passed to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office under the Transfer of Functions (Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs) Order 2020, a machinery-of-government change rather than an acquisition. The FCDO instead sponsors public bodies: one executive agency (Wilton Park), four executive non-departmental public bodies, one advisory NDPB, and the British Council and FCDO Services outside its accounting boundary. It is also the 100 per cent shareholder in British International Investment plc (03877777). Sponsorship is not a shareholding and must not be read as a corporate ownership chain.
Can Zavia monitor changes to Foreign and Commonwealth Office's ownership over time?
This profile reflects a point-in-time snapshot from Company Data Enrichment. Zavia's monitoring API can track changes to Foreign and Commonwealth Office's registered shareholders, officers, and group structure going forward, flagging updates as they're filed rather than requiring a manual recheck.
Can I access Foreign and Commonwealth Office's data through an API?
Yes. Zavia's API connects directly to official government ownership registries across 195 countries and territories, including United Arab Emirates, so records like Foreign and Commonwealth Office's registration, shareholder, UBO, and group-structure data can be queried programmatically instead of viewed one page at a time.
Where does this company information come from, and how current is it?
This record is sourced directly from Company Data Enrichment and was last synced on 30 September 2026.