Registered office address rules: what the law requires now
Last reviewed 2026-09-08. Prices referenced were read from providers' own websites on 8 September 2026.
A registered office is the official address of a UK limited company. It appears on the public register, it is where Companies House and HMRC write to the company, and it is where legal documents can be served. The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act changed the rules for that address on 4 March 2024, and a lot of older advice online is now wrong.
Quick answer: Your registered office must be a physical address in the same part of the UK your company is registered in, where post is expected to reach someone acting for the company and delivery can be acknowledged. A PO Box on its own no longer qualifies. A virtual office address does, provided the provider agrees to act for you and signs for post.
What is the appropriate address test?
An appropriate address is one where two things are both true: a document delivered there would be expected to come to the attention of a person acting on behalf of the company, and delivery can be recorded by obtaining an acknowledgement. The test has applied to every UK company since 4 March 2024.
In practice the test removed two things from the market. The first is the PO Box used on its own, because a box number with no underlying street address has nobody to acknowledge anything. The second is the pure mail-drop, where letters arrive in a pigeonhole and nobody is responsible for them. If a letter can arrive and vanish with no record, the address fails.
Third-party addresses remain allowed. A formation agent, an accountant or a virtual office provider can be your registered office as long as someone there acknowledges delivery and passes post on. That is why the cheap statutory-mail plans still work: Rapid Formations' statutory-mail-only address at 71-75 Shelton Street accepts Companies House, HMRC and court post and scans it to you2, which satisfies the test even though it refuses everything else.
What happens if a registered office fails the test?
Companies House can move a company that fails the test to a default address that the registrar controls. The company then has 28 days to supply an appropriate address, with evidence that it has a genuine link to it. Miss that deadline and the registrar can begin striking the company off the register.
This is not a paperwork inconvenience. A company at the default address receives nothing: no reminders, no penalty notices, no court papers. The first sign of trouble is often a strike-off notice or a default judgment. If your provider closes, moves or stops signing for post, you have a compliance problem within days, which is one reason to check who actually owns the building you are paying for.
Which registered office rules have not changed?
Four older rules still apply alongside the appropriate address test: the address must be a physical location in the UK, it must sit in the same part of the UK the company is registered in, it is public, and the company's name must be displayed there. A fifth requirement, a registered email address, arrived on the same day as the appropriate address test.
| Rule | What it means for you | Where people go wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Physical UK location | A street address, not a box number or an overseas office | Using a Royal Mail PO Box with no street address behind it |
| Same part of the UK | England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, matching the incorporation | An England and Wales company buying registered office addresses in Edinburgh, which are for Scottish companies |
| Public record | Anyone can look the address up free, including after the company closes | Assuming a later change removes the old address from past filings |
| Name displayed | The company name must be visible at the address | Rarely an issue; providers keep a register of client names at shared buildings |
| Registered email | Companies House uses it for official communication; it is not published | Letting it point at a mailbox nobody reads |
The same-part-of-the-UK rule catches more people than you would think. England and Wales are one jurisdiction, so a Cardiff registered office is fine for a company incorporated in London and vice versa. Scotland and Northern Ireland are separate. A Scottish company cannot use a London formation agent whose address is only offered for England and Wales companies, and 1st Formations says on its own page that its registered office is for England and Wales companies only1. Glasgow has its own suppliers, such as Clyde Offices in Glasgow at £19 a month plus VAT on a rolling contract5, and Belfast registered office providers serve Northern Ireland companies from £45 a month at Titanic Suites6.
How is a registered office different from a director's service address?
The registered office belongs to the company. The service address belongs to each director personally and appears against their name on the register. They are separate filings, they are usually separate purchases, and changing one does nothing to the other.
This is the mistake that undoes most privacy plans. Someone buys a registered office, files the change, and leaves their home address sitting in plain sight as their service address. Both addresses are public. Both need changing. Our guide to moving your home address off the public register walks through the two forms in order. Rapid Formations sells the director's address as a separate £26 a year product2; Uniwide charges £29 a year plus VAT for its service address4. Neither is included in the registered office price.
Why do providers ask for your passport?
Providing a registered office, business address or correspondence address is a relevant activity under the UK's money laundering regulations. Every virtual office provider is therefore a trust or company service provider and must be supervised for anti-money-laundering purposes. Identity checks at sign-up are a legal duty, not a sales-prevention exercise.
Expect to supply photo ID and a proof of address, and often a liveness check on your phone. The friction varies a lot between providers. Work.Life charges a £50 non-refundable identity and anti-money-laundering fee and will only take companies that are already incorporated7. Wizu Workspace asks for photo ID from every beneficial owner holding 25 per cent or more, plus a proof of address dated within three months8. A provider that asks for none of this is not complying, which should worry you more than the inconvenience.
Two further changes sit on top of the money laundering rules. Since 18 March 2025, anyone verifying identity for Companies House on behalf of clients must be registered as an Authorised Corporate Service Provider. And identity verification itself became mandatory on 18 November 2025 for directors, LLP members and people with significant control, after a voluntary period from 8 April 2025. New directors need a Companies House personal code; existing directors supply it at their next confirmation statement. If you are forming a company anyway, a provider that is also an ACSP can do the verification at the same time. Uniwide, which states ACSP status on its own site, is the only provider in our data that does so explicitly4. If you are outside the UK, our guide to setting up a UK registered office from abroad covers the extra checks that apply.
Which providers meet the rules, and what do they charge?
Every provider listed on this site that offers a registered office service meets the appropriate address test, because the test is simply that somebody signs for post and passes it on. What separates them is what else the plan covers, which jurisdiction the address serves and how the price is billed.
| Provider | Address | Jurisdiction | Registered office price | What the plan covers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Formations | Covent Garden, WC2H | England and Wales | £39 a year plus VAT1 | Government and court mail only |
| Rapid Formations | Covent Garden, WC2H | England and Wales | £39 a year2 | Statutory mail, scanned |
| Ghost Mail (virtualukoffice.co.uk) | Kington, Herefordshire | England and Wales | £19 a year ex VAT3 | Registered office only |
| Uniwide | Kensington, W8 | England and Wales | £69 a year plus VAT4 | Registered office; ACSP verification available |
| Clyde Offices | Glasgow, G2 | Scotland | £19 a month plus VAT, or £180 a year5 | Registered office, director's address, trading address, scanning |
| Titanic Suites | Belfast, BT2 | Northern Ireland | £45 a month ex VAT6 | Registered and trading address, mail forwarding on higher tiers |
Two traps are worth naming. Ghost Mail Ltd runs at least four brands from the same Herefordshire addresses, and one of them, ghostmail.co.uk, sells a virtual office that its own site says cannot be used as a registered office3. And several London workspace operators advertise a virtual office price that does not include Companies House use at all. The Covent Garden formation agents at the cheap end and the serviced buildings at the dear end are selling different things under one name. Before you buy, run through the questions to put to a provider before you sign, or let the comparison tool rank the providers that can act as your registered office in your part of the UK. Some providers pay us a commission when you buy; it never affects the order, as our commission disclosure explains.
Where these figures come from
- 1st Formations registered office service page, read 8 September 2026: £39.00 a year plus VAT, covering government and court mail only; the page states the service is for companies registered in England and Wales.
- Rapid Formations London registered office page, read 8 September 2026: registered office £39.00 a year, director's service address £26.00 a year, business address £89.00 a year, all at 71-75 Shelton Street, London WC2H 9JQ. Rapid Formations and 1st Formations share the same parent group and building.
- Ghost Mail Ltd, company number 11432238, trading as virtualukoffice.co.uk, postbox.company, registeredoffice.agency and ghostmail.co.uk, all read 8 September 2026: registered office service £19.00 a year ex VAT at Kington, Herefordshire; the ghostmail.co.uk virtual office product page states it cannot be used as a registered office.
- Uniwide Formations registered office and service address pages, read 8 September 2026: registered office £69 plus VAT a year (the page's structured data carries £59, so we use the visible figure), service address £29 plus VAT a year, stated onboarding of 3 to 24 hours; Uniwide's site states it is an Authorised Corporate Service Provider.
- Clyde Offices, virtual office Glasgow page, read 8 September 2026: £19 a month plus VAT rolling, £180 a year plus VAT, or £45 plus VAT for year one renewing at £180; includes two company names and two director names; 48 West George Street, G2 1BP.
- Titanic Suites virtual office page, read 8 September 2026: Silver £45, Gold £60, Platinum £80 a month, all subject to VAT; Belfast BT2 8FE.
- Work.Life virtual office page, read 8 September 2026: £50 non-refundable AML and KYC fee; the company must already be incorporated; most members approved within 24 hours.
- Wizu Workspace virtual office terms, read 8 September 2026: photo ID required from all beneficial owners of 25 per cent or more plus proof of address dated within three months; £25 plus VAT activation fee on all tiers.