Guide · Company formation
Registered office vs home address: what should you use?
Your registered office is your company’s official legal address on the public record — where Companies House and HMRC send formal documents. You can legally use your home. The real question is whether you want your home address publicly searchable, permanently.
What the registered office actually is
- The company’s address of legal record. Statutory mail, court documents and Companies House correspondence go here. It appears on the free public register next to your company number.
- An “appropriate address” by law. Documents delivered there must be expected to reach the company, and delivery must be capable of being acknowledged. That rules out bare PO Boxes and dead-drop addresses.
- Jurisdiction-locked.Incorporated in England & Wales? The registered office must stay in England or Wales for the company’s life. (Same principle for Scotland and Northern Ireland.)
- Separate from your trading address.Where you actually work can be anywhere and is nobody’s business but yours (and HMRC’s).
Home address vs address service — the honest trade-off
| Home address | Registered office service |
|---|---|
| Free. But: publicly searchable against your name and company forever; unsolicited mail; awkward with landlords, mortgage terms and some insurers; and every future customer, supplier or ex-client can look up where you live. | Typically £20–£100+/year. Keeps your home off the register, usually bundles director service addresses, often adds mail scanning/forwarding, and reads as a stable business address to banks and counterparties. |
The asymmetry that decides it: you cannot un-publish history. Changing your registered office later (form AD01, free) does not remove the old filings showing your home address — suppression of historical documents is a paid, case-by-case application. Starting with a non-home address costs pounds; retrofitting privacy costs paperwork.
Two addresses people forget
- Director’s service address. Each director publishes one of these too. Use your home there and you have the same problem through a second door.
- Registered email address. Companies also have to maintain a registered email for Companies House (not published). Use a company-domain inbox you actually read — statutory notices increasingly arrive there.
Forming a company and unsure which address to use?
Every ProSolve formation includes consultancy time — we map your registered office, service address and registered email choices before anything is filed, so nothing private lands on the public record by accident.
See launch packages →Frequently asked questions
Can I use my home address as my registered office?+
Yes, legally — as long as documents delivered there will reliably reach the company, it counts as an appropriate address. The catch is that the registered office appears on the free, public Companies House register, and the filing history showing it stays visible even after you change address later.
Can I use a PO Box?+
Not on its own. Since the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act rules took effect, the registered office must be an "appropriate address" — somewhere a document can be delivered by hand or post, with delivery capable of being acknowledged. A bare PO Box does not qualify; a full physical street address does.
Does my registered office have to be where I actually work?+
No. The registered office is a legal inbox, not your workplace. Many companies trade from home, a workshop or client sites while their registered office is an address service or their accountant’s office. It must, however, stay in the jurisdiction you incorporated in — a company registered in England and Wales must keep its registered office in England or Wales.
I already used my home address. Can I remove it from the register?+
You can change the registered office at any time, free, with form AD01 — but changing it does not erase the old filings that show your home address. Companies House does have a paid application process for suppressing a home address from historical documents in defined circumstances; it is document-by-document, so it is far better to start with a non-home address than to clean up later.
What is a director’s service address, and is it the same thing?+
No — it is a second, separate public address. Every director must give a service address for the public record as well as a private residential address for Companies House’s internal records. If you use your home for your service address, the same permanence problem applies, so most address services cover both the registered office and director service addresses together.
What does a registered office service cost?+
Typically somewhere between £20 and £100+ per year depending on whether it includes mail scanning and forwarding and director service addresses. Against the cost of your home address sitting on a public register indefinitely, it is one of the cheapest pieces of privacy a founder can buy.
This guide is general information, not legal advice, and reflects the registered-office rules as we understand them in 2026 following the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act changes. Requirements evolve — check current guidance on GOV.UK before acting.