Registered Office and Service Address Facilities

Registered Office Address £59+vat per annum

What is the registered office?

All UK registered companies must have a registered office address, which is a real address, which is a physical location in the UK. It is the address of a company to which Companies House letters and reminders and other official documents, such as forms from HMRC will be sent. The registered company address can be anywhere in England, Wales and Scotland (or Northern Ireland if your company is registered there).

However the registered office need not be a place where the company carries on its day-to-day business. For example, some companies use their formation agent or accountant’s address as their registered office. However, the directors are responsible for ensuring their registered office is effective in terms of dealing with all notices, letters and reminders sent by Companies House or other organisations, businesses or individuals. For example, you could receive a legal demand from a creditor and you will need to respond promptly to avoid further action.

If any person you deal with in the course of your business requests in writing the address of your registered office, or the location where they can inspect your company records, or details of the records that you keep at your registered office, you must respond within five working days.

Our Registered Office facility is particularly useful for smaller companies, such as those being run by a sole director from home, where a separate address for service of routine paperwork from authorities such as Companies House and the Inland Revenue may be required for various reasons.

The facility is intended solely as an address for service of routine mail only and must not be used as a trading address or for collection and forwarding of general mail. Your stationery must not indicate this to be so. The registered address must be included on your business stationery but please do not display our telephone number.

BTC's 'Registered Office Service' costs £59+VAT per annum. An additional charge of £0.95 per item for handling plus the appropriate postage rate is payable for each item (average 6-8 items per annum per company).

This service is available when you are forming your company through our online system, just click to select the service when completing the registered office section.

if you have already incorporated a company and wish to change your registered office, you can still

Order the BTC Registered office Service Now. 

Service Addresses (available from 1 October 2009) £59+vat per annum

What is a Service Address?

A service address is defined under s1141 as ‘an address at which documents maybe effectively served upon that person’. The conditions for this are laid out in the Companies Act 2006 (Annual Return and Service Addresses) Regulations 2008. Regulation 10 states that ‘the service address must be a place where the service of documents can be effected by physical delivery and the delivery of documents is capable of being recorded by the obtaining of an acknowledgement of delivery’. For further information on service addresses and their requirements such as annual returns, see the BTC Guidance on the Disclosure of Residential Addresses.

The Service Address Facility is many ways is similar to the requirements for that of ‘Registered Office’ but for the benefit of the director’s rather than the company itself.

It should be noted however that a person who is a director or secretary of more than one company can file a different service address for each company he is an officer. This can mean that a change of service address at one company does not trigger changes at the others.

It would common for the service address to be that of the registered office, especially when that address is other than a residential address. One concession under the Act is that the service address may be listed and filed as simply ‘the company’s registered office’ and not having to enter the full address. This could be particularly useful if the company changes its registered office, meaning no amendments need to be filed for the individual directors.

BTC's 'Service Address Facility' costs £59+VAT per annum. An additional charge of £0.95 per item for handling plus the appropriate postage rate is payable for each item (average 6-8 items per annum per director).

The ‘Service Address Facility’ is available when you are forming your company through our online system, just click to select the service when completing the details of the officers in the appointments section.

if you have already incorporated a company and wish to change your service address, you can still

Order the BTC Service Address Facility Now.