What is a registered address?

A Registered Office Address is an official address legally required by all companies and partnerships incorporated in the UK. Its sole purpose is for providing official bodies such as Companies House, HMRC an address to deliver official mail, as well as a location for the company or organisation to store their statutory registers.

Although the Registered Office Address does not need to be in the same area as your trading location, the Registered Office does need to be in the same legal jurisdiction, for example if your company is registered in England the registered office must be in England, equally companies registered in Scotland must have their registered office in Scotland.

Both residential and non residential addresses can be used as a registered office, however the Companies Act strictly forbids the use of Royal Mail Po Boxes as a registered office.

In this article:

Why do I need a registered office?
Do I need a registered office for a LLP?
Can I use my home address as my registered office?
What is the difference between a Registered Office and a trading Address?
Can I use a Po Box as a Registered Office?
Can I use a council house as my registered office?
Can I change my registered office?
Can I move registered office to a different country?
How frequently can I change registered office?
What statutory documents should I keep?

As far as the Companies Act is concerned the use of a council home or any social housing is perfectly acceptable, however issues will most certainly arise when your landlord, council or housing association become aware.

If you check your tenancy agreement there will be a clause specifically forbidding the use of the property for business purposes.

Yes. In order to form a limited liability partnership (LLP) you must have a registered office. As with other types of companies your registered office must be in the same jurisdiction as you are incorporated in; such as England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.

Whilst there is nothing to stop you using your home address as your registered office there a number of factors you should carefully consider before proceeding.

• The registered office of all companies is public information and freely available online. This will certainly result in an increase in unwanted and unsolicited mail but can also result in unwanted visitors.
• Living in rental accommodation including council and social landlords mean your tenancy agreement may specifically forbid the use of the property for business use.
• Mortgaged properties. As with rental property there is likely to be a cause in your mortgage agreement specifically forbidding the use of the property for business purposes.
• Check your insurance. The vast majority of insurance policies will again specifically for bid the use of your property for business purposes. You should contact your insurer to discus this with them directly.

A professional registered office address such as those provided by City Mailing Address will help you draw a clear line between home and work and make your company much more appealing to potential customers and/or investors.

As your company’s official address the registered office is where statutory mail from various government departments is delivered such as HMRC and Companies House. A trading address or business address is used as a contact point for all other kinds of mail and correspondence such as letters from customers, suppliers, banks etc.

Whilst a company may have multiple trading addresses, such as offices, retail premises, distribution sites etc, there will however be only 1 registered office. If we look at a supermarket who may have 30 – 40 stores dotted around the UK and possibly a distribution centre however their official government mail will still go to their registered office and their official statutory documents will still be stored at their registered office.

There is a lot of conflicting information available online regarding the use of Po Box addresses as your registered office, some of this conflicting information comes from Companies House itself as when changing registered office it will ask if you want to add a “Po Box”

However reading the provisions of the companies act and/or telephoning companies house clears up the confusion. A Royal Po Box cannot be used as a registered office. Po Box addresses provided by Royal Mail do not provide a real physical address which makes them not suitable for registered offices

There is a lot of conflicting information available online regarding the use of Po Box addresses as your registered office, some of this conflicting information comes from Companies House itself as when changing registered office it will ask if you want to add a “Po Box”

However reading the provisions of the companies act and/or telephoning companies house clears up the confusion. A Royal Po Box cannot be used as a registered office. Po Box addresses provided by Royal Mail do not provide a real physical address which makes them not suitable for registered offices

Yes. Changes to your registered office can be made at any time free of charge. The same requirements of a physical location in the same legal jurisdiction apply to the new registered office.

Changing your registered office is straight forward and there are two options available.

Online – By far the easiest and quickest way to change your registered office is to log into your companies house web filing account and clicking the “change address” link shown next to the current registered office.

Form AD01 – If you do not have access your companies house web filing account you will need to download and complete companies house form AD01 before rerunning this by mail to companies house.

Although Companies House covers the whole of the UK, there are 3 different legal jurisdictions which are England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. As each of these areas is governed by a different legal system it is not possible to move a company from one jurisdiction to another.

A company registered in England & Wales can however move between England and Wales as this comes under the same jurisdiction.

You are free to change Registered Office as and when you want, there is no restriction on the amount of time you can change registered office.