What is a registered office? A registered office address is the official address of a company or limited liability partnership registered with Companies House.  Section 86 of the Companies Act 2006, stipulates that each UK company must provide a registered office address in the UK at the time of formation, and maintain a registered office address throughout the life of the company. This requirement even applies to businesses from abroad and those who only offer their products and services online.

The introduction of the 2023 Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act further stipulates that a registered office cannot be a PO Box and must be “appropriate” according to the following definitions:

• Should come to the attention of the person acting on behalf of the company (usually the company directors, secretary etc)
• Any documents sent to the address can be recorded by an acknowledgement of delivery (usually by signing for Royal Mail recorded delivery)

Accountants and other agents such as Acorn Business Solutions may user their address for their clients providing they meet the above criteria.

Acorn Business Solutions professional registered office service meets these requirements. For more information please see Registered Office

The main requirement is that the registered office address must be readily available for mail to be delivered and where necessary someone must be available to sign for the mail being received. The person signing for the mail does not need to be an officer or employee of the company.

The company’s registered office should appear on the company’s

• Business letters, emails and other correspondence
• Other business stationary
• Invoices and order forms
• Brochures and other marketing materials
• Websites.

The company name must usually be displayed at the registered office so that a customer or member of the public can view it. It is also usual for the registered office address to be displayed at any other office or location operated by the company.

Although dormant companies are except from the requirement to display their name at the registered office, the registered office address is still mandatory.

A company must also make certain statutory documents available for inspection at their registered office unless they have a SAIL address (single alternative inspection location) This includes company registers and a register of members, directors, etc. Although this information is freely available online. Members of the public may request to view these documents at your registered office (this however is extremely rare).

A company change choose to change their registered office address at any time. Please see our article on how to change your registered office”