Virtual office guide
How to keep your home address off Companies House
Keep your front door off the register.
Give Companies House a business address for both your company's registered office and your director's service address. New filings then show the business address instead of your home. Older documents keep the address they were filed with, but you can apply to have your home address removed from some of them.
Why is my home address on Companies House?
The Companies House register is public. Anyone can search it online, for free, and see the addresses your company has filed. Many directors set up their company from home and used their home address because it was the easiest thing to put on the form.
Your home address can appear on the register in three places:
- The registered office. Your company's official address. It's shown on the register and on your company's documents.
- Your service address as a director. The address Companies House and others use to write to you as a director.
- Your service address as a person with significant control (PSC). If you own or control the company, you'll also be listed as a PSC.
Companies House also collects your usual residential address. That address isn't shown on the public register as long as you've given a separate service address. Only the month and year of your date of birth are shown publicly.
How do I take my home address off Companies House?
It takes two changes, and you can make both online with Companies House.
- Change your registered office address. Move it to a business address you're allowed to use, such as a virtual office in Liverpool. The new address becomes your registered office once Companies House registers the change. For 14 days after that, documents can still be validly delivered to the old address.
- Change your service address as a director and as a PSC. Replace your home with a director's service address. Your residential address stays private on the register from then on.
Changing only the registered office isn't enough. If your home is still your service address, it stays on the public register. The two have to be changed separately.
What happens to my old filings?
Documents filed before the change, such as your incorporation documents and earlier confirmation statements, keep the address they were filed with. Changing your address doesn't rewrite them.
Companies House lets you apply to remove your home address from some older documents on the register. There's a fee for each document, and you'll need to give a service address to use instead. The form, the current fee and which documents qualify are set out in Companies House guidance on gov.uk: look for removing your home address from the register.
What counts as a business address for Companies House?
Your registered office has to be an appropriate address. That means post sent to your company would come to someone acting on its behalf, and it could be acknowledged. A PO box doesn't count.
A virtual office is a real address in a staffed building, so it meets that test. At the Maggie O'Neill Centre, our team handles virtual office post in-house at reception, 433 Liverpool Road, Huyton, Liverpool, L36 8HT.
Which option do I need?
| Your situation | What to change | At Maggie's |
|---|---|---|
| Only your registered office is your home (your service address is already elsewhere) | The registered office | Address Only, £20 a month |
| Your home is the registered office and your director's service address | Both | Address Only + Director's Cover, £30 a month |
| Both, and you want your post scanned and meeting rooms for clients | Both | Virtual Office + Director's Cover, £50 a month |
No lock-in. Cancel any time with one month's notice.
Do I need to tell anyone else?
Companies House doesn't pass your new address on to other organisations. Once the change is registered, update the address on your website, invoices, letterheads, Google Business Profile and anywhere else your home address was published for the business.
Not sure which addresses to change? Call us and we'll talk it through. If you'd like a business address on your invoices as well as your registered office, every virtual office plan at the Maggie O'Neill Centre covers both.