How to Change Your Registered Office After Using Your Home Address

Used your home address as a registered office? You can change it

If you incorporated a company using your home address as its registered office, you can change the current registered office to a new suitable address. This is the urgent first step if you no longer want your home to remain the company’s live public address.

There is an important second step: changing the current address does not automatically make earlier filings disappear from the public record. Companies House now provides a route to apply to suppress a home address that was used as a former registered office, subject to its process and conditions. Treat the change and the suppression request as separate tasks.

This guide is for UK limited-company owners, including home-based consultants, contractors, ecommerce founders and remote teams. It explains what you can do now, what you should not promise yourself about search results, and how a Kent business-address service can fit into a sensible privacy-and-mail workflow.

First, understand what is public

A company’s registered office is public on the Companies House register. Companies House specifically advises people who run a company from home to choose a different registered-office address if they do not want their home address publicly available. It also says the address must be in place before incorporation if you want to avoid publishing your home from the start. See Companies House guidance on personal information.

Directors have separate address fields too. A director must provide a service address, which is public, and a usual residential address, which is normally held privately when entered in the correct field. If you used the home address for both the company’s registered office and your director service address, changing only the registered office will not fix the service-address record. Review every public address field.

Do not panic, but do act methodically. The goal is to stop future public use of the home address where possible, replace it with a valid address you are allowed to use, and then follow the official suppression route for historic documents.

Choose a new address before filing the change

Do not file a placeholder address or use a friend’s, accountant’s or provider’s address without permission. The new registered office must meet Companies House requirements on the day you submit it.

Companies House says the address must be a physical address in the UK and in the same country in which the company is registered. It must be “appropriate”: someone acting for the company must be made aware of delivered post and the sender must be able to obtain delivery confirmation. A Royal Mail PO Box or similar mailbox-only service cannot be used as the registered office. The full requirements are in the official company-address guidance.

For an England-and-Wales company, a Kent address can meet the jurisdiction requirement where the provider confirms registered-office use and the arrangement meets the appropriate-address test. A company registered in Scotland or Northern Ireland cannot simply move its registered office to Kent; the new address must stay in the same part of the UK as incorporation unless the company re-incorporates. This is a frequent and costly mistake to avoid.

Before committing, ask an address provider these practical questions:

• Is registered-office use included in this exact plan, not just general business mail?
• Can the address be used as a director service address too, if needed?
• How are Companies House, HMRC or court letters recorded and passed on?
• Can the provider make us aware of delivered mail promptly, and can delivery be confirmed?
• Which recipient names and company names are permitted?
• What are the scan, forwarding, storage and cancellation rules?

Written clarity is useful both for compliance and for preventing a frustrating address change later.

How to change the registered office with Companies House

For an ordinary active limited company, you can normally use the Companies House online service to change the registered office. You will need the company authentication code. You can also use form AD01 where a paper filing is needed. Companies House says you must tell it within 14 days of the change and that the address does not officially change until it is registered. See AD01 and the online filing guidance.

Use the address exactly as authorised by the provider. Double-check the company number and postcode before submitting. Once registered, Companies House says it will tell HMRC about the registered-office change. That is helpful, but it is not a reason to ignore your other records. A registered office is only one possible address held by HMRC, banks, insurers, marketplaces, clients and suppliers.

If the company is in liquidation, being restored, has been defaulted to the Companies House address or is an unregistered company, the usual online route may not apply. Follow Companies House instructions or seek professional help rather than guessing.

Update director service addresses separately

After changing the company address, check the public entries for every director, company secretary and person with significant control (PSC). If a home address is still shown as an individual’s service or correspondence address, file the appropriate change for that person. A registered-office filing does not automatically amend officer service addresses.

Your actual usual residential address must remain correct in Companies House records, but it should be given in the residential-address field rather than the public service-address field if you want to preserve privacy. Companies House confirms that a service address can be the company registered office or a different address; it is the address published for company communications. The official personal-information guide has the current explanation.

This is also a good moment to check old incorporation documents. If you entered the home as a subscriber address or in other public fields, there may be more than one document to consider for suppression.

What happens to the old home address?

Changing the current registered office prevents the old address from being the company’s live registered office once the change is registered. It does not itself erase historic filing documents. That distinction matters because an address can remain visible in older incorporation or change-of-address paperwork and may have been copied by third-party websites.

Companies House guidance says you can apply to remove a home address if it was used as a service or correspondence address or as the company’s registered office. For an active company, you must first change the registered office before applying. Companies House states that it can now suppress a home address used as a former registered office. Read the current guidance on removing personal details rather than relying on older forum advice.

The guidance currently says the application is made using form SR01 and costs £34 for each document listed. It also explains that, if accepted, Companies House will remove the personal details from the documents you list and may show limited location information instead. Fees, forms and eligibility can change, so check the live guidance and the SR01 form page immediately before applying.

A practical suppression checklist

1. Search the Companies House register for your company and identify every document showing the home address. 2. Change the active registered office first, if the company is active. 3. Check director, secretary and PSC service addresses; provide a replacement public address if needed. 4. Read the latest SR01 instructions and list the original documents that contain the home address. Do not assume one form covers every filing. 5. Budget the current per-document fee and retain copies of what you submit. 6. Wait for Companies House’s decision before assuming the public record has changed. 7. Contact third-party data services directly about their own copies. Companies House cannot control independent sites’ data-processing decisions.

The aim is accuracy, not perfection. Suppression improves what is publicly shown through Companies House if the application is accepted; it cannot guarantee that every historical copy, cached page or person who previously saw the address will forget it.

Update the rest of your business safely

Once Companies House accepts the new registered office, work through the business systems that use an address. Update the legal details on your website and invoices where appropriate, supplier accounts, marketplace profiles, insurance, bank records and trade directories. Review your privacy policy and contact page too: removing an address from Companies House will not remove it from your own website.

For VAT, do not replace the business’s main address with a mail service automatically. HMRC treats the VAT principal place of business differently from a registered office. It is normally where orders are managed and day-to-day business takes place. If your operational location has not changed, the VAT PPOB may not have changed. Read our guide to virtual addresses and VAT principal place of business and use HMRC’s guidance or adviser where needed.

If you have changed the main business address for VAT purposes, HMRC says it must be updated within 30 days. That requirement sits alongside—not inside—the Companies House registered-office process.

How a Kent address service can help after the change

Kent Business Address and Virtual Mail can provide a defined business correspondence and mail-management workflow for suitable UK businesses. Where your selected plan expressly permits registered-office and/or director-service-address use, a Kent address can help keep a home address out of the live public company record while giving business mail a separate destination.

The benefit is practical control, not a legal shortcut. You still need to read official post, respond to deadlines, keep Companies House details accurate and use the correct address for VAT and other regulatory purposes. A good address service makes the physical-mail part easier with agreed notification, scan, forwarding, collection, storage or destruction options. You remain responsible for the underlying company and tax obligations.

Common mistakes after an address change

• Believing that changing the live registered office automatically removes old documents.
• Forgetting to replace a director’s public service address.
• Using an address outside the company’s incorporation jurisdiction.
• Choosing a cheap mailbox that is not appropriate for registered-office use.
• Assuming Companies House’s notification to HMRC updates every tax or operational address.
• Publishing the old home address on the business website, invoices or social profiles after the Companies House change.
• Promising clients that you have a staffed office at the new address when you only have a mail service.

Frequently asked questions

How quickly can I change a registered office address?

You should tell Companies House within 14 days of the change. The new address is not official until Companies House registers it. Online filing is generally the quickest route for an ordinary active company, subject to the service and your company status.

Will changing the address remove my home from Companies House?

It replaces the current registered office once registered, but it does not automatically erase historic filings. You can apply to suppress an eligible former registered-office home address using the Companies House process after you have changed the active address.

Can I use a virtual business address as my new registered office?

Possibly, if the provider permits registered-office use and the address meets Companies House requirements: it must be physical, in the correct jurisdiction, appropriate for official post and used with permission. Check the plan terms before filing.

Does Companies House tell HMRC about the change?

Companies House says it will tell HMRC when a registered office changes. Still check whether any separate VAT, PAYE, Corporation Tax or operational-contact details need updating, because address purposes can differ.

Can I hide my home address if it was my director service address too?

Companies House says you can apply to remove a home address used as a service or correspondence address. If you are still an active officer, you will need a replacement address. Review the current suppression guidance before applying.