How do you change your business service address?

When you go through the process of company formation to register your company as a limited company, you will be required to provide a business service address to Companies House to include in their public register.

Your business service address for your limited company is your official contact address. HMRC and Companies House will use this address to send you all your official statutory posts related to the company. This address is used to communicate with your business directors, company secretary, and anyone enrolled in your PSC register.

Can you select any address for your company?

You can select any address you like as your company address, but you must be informed that any address you select to go with will appear on the public record for everyone to see. That is why you should think twice about using your home address as your business address. Instead of putting your private residential address on public record, you can choose a different address for your business so that your home address can remain private and off-limits for the public. There is a large number of confusion for those business owners, who are new to corporate formations.

The reason why you need two different addresses, i.e. service address and registered office address is because they both are being used for separate reasons.

Companies House, HMRC and other government departments use your business service address to communicate with your company directors and staff about their role in your company or LLP. However, your registered office is used as the official contact address for your limited company or LLP in its own right. Once your company has been registered with Companies House, your limited company will become an entity in its own right. Therefore, you will receive official statutory emails from Companies House at its registered office address.

Who requires a business service address?

A business service address is an address, which will need to be provided to Companies House and remain as an active address at all times.

People within your company will need a service address are as follows:

• Any person with significant control or influence over a company (People with Significant Control (PSCs)
• Original shareholders
• Guarantors with more than 25% voting rights in a company
• Company secretary
• LLP members
• Limited company directors
• Shareholders who hold more than 25% of the company's shares or voting rights

What are the rules that apply to your business service address?

There are numerous rules and regulations that are applied while registering an address as your service address. These rules are quite flexible. For example, you can base your service address anywhere in the world, i.e. you may choose to use your home address as a business service address for comfort. If you operate your business from home and want to maintain everything under one roof and you are pleased to have a public record of your home address, then your business service address can be used as your home address.

Another useful decision you can make is to use the same address for both your registered office and business service. However, understanding the nature of your home address is on the public record and the fact that having both your service address and registered office address located under one roof implies that your home should be accessible to any member of the public to check your company registers.

If you do not want strangers knocking at your door when you are having personal family time, then registering your business-related addresses elsewhere is the only way to protect your home from unwanted visitors and unsolicited mail.

Can you change your business service address at any time?

Many limited companies and LLPs are formed by those business owners who are willing to be registered with Companies House quickly to begin trading under their official company name. While this is a very beneficial move and helps to enhance your professional public image, it often implies the directors registering their business addresses under their home addresses for convenience.

Quite often new company owners are unaware of the rules and regulations of their company address registration. Many do not understand that they can choose to use a registered office address service where they can register their service address officially, receive their statutory mail and send it to them. Having this knowledge prior to going for the company formation process can save them a lot of time and hassle further down the road when they want to change their business service address.

How do you change your service address?

You need to notify Companies House of your new address when you want to change your company service address. Since you can use the same address for both your registered address and service address, you can use the same new address to cover both statutory company addresses if you want to change both addresses to a new one. However, the address of your registered office must be located in the same country as that of your company. For example, if you register your business in the UK with a UK-based service address and registered office address, you can change your service address to an address based anywhere across the globe, but your registered office address must remain as a UK-based address.

It is useful to understand that if you register your company in England and Wales, you can move your registered office from England to Wales or vice versa if you decide to relocate your company from one region to another.

Choose your new service address

You should think about changing your service address to a non-residential address not only because it will protect your privacy and home life, but it will also help to improve your business image and perception by the general public and prospective new customers.

Please remember that you are not allowed to use a PO Box number for your address while selecting a new service address.

While your company directors and those on your PSC register etc. are required to provide Companies House with their home address during the company formation process, Companies House will never share your home address in the public.

Company formations services

RTRSupports Limited offers limited company formation services to business owners who want to take their business to the next level. Using our company formations experts, you can get all the help you need to form your own company at a cost-effective price. Do not hesitate to contact RTRSupports Limited for a free consultation that will help you in deciding which services are the best for your business module.