The CREST Transfer Form is the paper instrument you use to move UK or Irish share certificates into electronic form within the CREST settlement system run by Euroclear UK & International. You fill it in with details copied exactly from your share certificate, sign it, complete the correct stamp duty certificate on the reverse, and send it with the original certificate to your broker or the company’s registrar. Once processed, the paper certificate is cancelled and the shares appear in a CREST account you can trade through online.
What to Gather Before You Start
Get everything in front of you before you pick up a pen. You need three things.
- The original share certificate. Photocopies are never accepted. If you hold more than one class of stock in the same company (ordinary and preference, for example), each class needs its own separate form.
- The certificate number, printed at the top of the certificate and sometimes labelled “Cert No.” On the form this belongs in the field marked CERTIN.
- Your broker’s CREST Participant ID and Member Account ID. The Participant ID is typically four or five characters. These identify the CREST member who will hold the shares for you and are not the same as the customer or portfolio number you use to log in to your brokerage account. Ask your broker or nominee for them directly.
The blank form itself comes from the company’s share registrar or as a downloadable PDF from your broker. Equiniti and Computershare handle the registers for most UK-listed companies; if you don’t know which one applies, the registrar’s name is usually printed on the share certificate, or you can find it in the investor relations section of the company’s website.
Filling In the Front of the Form
Use block capitals or type. Registrars process thousands of these, and unreadable handwriting is one of the fastest routes to rejection.
Company and Share Details
The first section asks for the name of the undertaking. Copy it exactly as it appears on the certificate, not as the company is informally known. “Lloyds Banking Group plc” is not the same as “Lloyds Bank.” Enter the security description (“Ordinary 10p shares”, for example) the same way, word for word from the certificate.
Write the number of shares being transferred in both words and figures. Some forms break the figure across boxes for units, hundreds, thousands and so on. Where a box doesn’t apply, write “ZERO” rather than leaving it blank. A share count off by a single digit sends the whole package back.
Registered Holder Details
Enter the full name of every registered holder exactly as printed on the certificate. If the shares are jointly held, list all names in the same order as the certificate shows them. A middle initial dropped, a first name abbreviated, or two names swapped in sequence is enough to trigger a mismatch against the company register.
Transferee Details
This section says where the shares are going electronically. Enter the Participant ID and Member Account ID your broker gave you. The combination tells CREST precisely which account should receive the dematerialised shares. Don’t put your personal dealing account number here; brokers and custodians that act as direct CREST members have their own participant-level identifiers, which are separate from any reference number they use for retail customers.
Signatures
Every person named as a registered holder must sign. For jointly held shares one signature is not enough — all joint holders sign. If a registered holder has died, the executor or administrator signs in their place, notes the capacity on the form, and will normally need to send supporting documents such as a grant of probate with the submission. A corporate holder should execute the form under its common seal or in line with its statutory signing requirements.
The Stamp Duty Certificates on the Reverse
The back of the form carries two certificates dealing with UK Stamp Duty. One of them must be completed, or duty must be paid, or the registrar will not process the transfer. Stamp Duty is a tax on the written instrument itself (the paper form), charged at 0.5% of the consideration and rounded up to the nearest £5.
Certificate 1
Complete Certificate 1 if the total consideration for the shares is £1,000 or less and the transfer is not part of a larger transaction or series of transactions whose combined value exceeds £1,000. Signing this certificate means no Stamp Duty is payable.
Certificate 2
Complete Certificate 2 if the transfer is exempt from Stamp Duty. Examples include a transfer connected with divorce or civil partnership dissolution, or one where no chargeable consideration changes hands. A straightforward dematerialisation of your own shares — moving them from paper into your own CREST account with no sale involved — falls here, because there is no buyer and beneficial ownership does not change.
If neither certificate applies, meaning you are transferring shares as part of a sale for more than £1,000, Stamp Duty at 0.5% must be paid. When the transfer is linked to a sale, your broker usually handles the calculation and payment. Registrars act as enforcement agents for HMRC on share transfers, so a missing certificate and unpaid duty means the paperwork comes back.
If the Share Certificate Is Lost or Damaged
You cannot submit a CREST Transfer Form without the original share certificate. If yours is lost, stolen, or damaged beyond recognition, contact the registrar before doing anything else. The registrar places a stop on the missing certificate to prevent fraudulent use and issues replacement documentation under a letter of indemnity.
This is not free. Equiniti, one of the largest UK registrars, charges an administration fee of £50 for holdings valued at £150 or above (free below that), plus a countersignature waiver fee that scales with the value of the missing shares, from £16 for holdings worth £50 to £150, up to £676 for holdings between £75,000 and £100,000. Holdings above £100,000 are priced individually. If you plan to sell the entire holding through the registrar’s own dealing service and the missing certificates cover less than £5,000 in value, Equiniti offers a shortcut: a flat £60 charge deducted from the sale proceeds. The indemnity process takes time on top of the transfer itself, and share prices don’t wait for paperwork.
Where to Send the Completed Form
Once the form is signed, the correct stamp duty certificate is completed, and the original share certificate is in hand, send everything one of two ways.
- To your stockbroker. Most retail investors go this route. The broker checks the details and lodges the transfer with CREST on your behalf.
- Direct to the company’s registrar. Post the completed form and original certificate to the address on the registrar’s website or correspondence. For companies with Equiniti, the address is typically Equiniti, Corporate Actions, Aspect House, Spencer Road, Lancing, West Sussex, BN99 6DA, but confirm the current address for your specific holding first.
Use tracked or recorded delivery. You are posting an original share certificate that cannot simply be reprinted, and losing it in transit drops you straight into the indemnity process above.
Why Forms Get Rejected
Registrars reject CREST Transfer Forms regularly, and the same handful of mistakes drive most of it.
- Holder names on the form don’t match the company register exactly. A middle initial present on one and missing on the other is enough.
- Not all joint holders have signed, or a corporate holder has not executed the form properly.
- The form has been used for the wrong job. It is only for moving certificated shares to a CREST member, not for converting shares already held by a CREST member from one form to another.
- Neither stamp duty certificate is completed and no duty has been paid.
- Handwriting the registrar can’t read with certainty. Use block capitals or type.
- Multiple share classes crammed onto a single form. Each class needs its own.
Check every field against the certificate before you post. A rejection restarts the clock, sometimes with a fresh blank form, and adds days or weeks to the process.
What Happens After You Send It
The registrar checks the form against the company’s register of members and against the physical certificate. If everything matches, the paper certificate is cancelled and the shares are credited to the CREST account you specified. Euroclear’s standard process completes dematerialisation within one business day once valid documentation reaches the CREST counter. The total time from posting to seeing the shares appear in your electronic account will be longer, because postal delivery and any queue at the registrar’s office sit in front of that one-day step.
Your broker notifies you, usually by email or through the online account dashboard, once the shares land in your CREST account. From that point the paper certificate has no legal effect, and the shares trade electronically like anything else in the account.