Virtual office or PO Box: which do you actually need?

A PO Box is a post-handling product: Royal Mail holds letters addressed to a box number for you to collect or have delivered. A virtual office is a street address that a provider licenses your business to use, with post handling attached. People compare the two on price, choose the PO Box, and then find out it cannot do the one thing they bought it for.

Quick answer: A limited company that wants its home address off the Companies House register needs a virtual office, because a PO Box on its own cannot be a registered office. A sole trader who simply wants post to go somewhere other than home can use either, and a PO Box may be enough.

What is the difference between a PO Box and a virtual office?

The difference is what you are buying. A PO Box buys a box number and a delivery arrangement from Royal Mail. A virtual office buys the right to use a real street address as your company's address, plus a person at that address who signs for post and does something with it.

The private mailbox sector sits between the two. UK Postbox, Mail Boxes Etc and British Monomarks sell street addresses with post handling, and some of them also sell products they call PO Boxes. The name does not matter. What matters is whether there is a street address behind it and someone who will acknowledge delivery. Our explainer on what a virtual office actually includes breaks the product into its four parts.

Can a PO Box be used as a registered office?

A PO Box cannot be used on its own as a registered office. Since 4 March 2024 every company's registered office must be an appropriate address, where post is expected to reach someone acting for the company and delivery can be acknowledged. A box number with nobody responsible for it fails on both counts.

The workaround people try is to give the full physical address of the Royal Mail delivery office, with the PO Box number and postcode. That can satisfy the wording, but it puts a sorting office on your public record, raises questions with banks and customers, and still leaves nobody at the address acting for your company. The rule and its consequences are set out in our guide to why Companies House rejects a bare PO Box. Companies that fail the test can be moved to a default address and given 28 days to fix it.

When is a PO Box the better choice?

A PO Box is the better choice when you have no Companies House record, you want post moved rather than an address to publish, and you value Royal Mail as the counterparty. That describes many sole traders and a lot of people who simply do not want deliveries at home.

• You are a sole trader. There is no registered office to fill, so the legal reason for a virtual office does not apply.
• You want durability. Royal Mail is not going to disappear or rebrand. Private providers do: Landmark Space became Elementa Workspace in July 2026, and Runway East's virtual office page now shows only its homepage.
• You collect locally. A box at your nearest delivery office suits someone who passes it every day.

Royal Mail publishes its own PO Box prices and we do not track them here, so compare its current rate against the mailbox tier below rather than against a £479-a-month serviced office package.

When is a virtual office the better choice?

A virtual office is the better choice when you need a registered office or a director's service address, when you want an address that reads as an office to customers, or when you need post opened and scanned rather than posted on. It is also the only option that handles parcels at scale.

The scanning point matters more than it sounds. A PO Box moves envelopes. A monthly virtual office plan opens them, scans the contents and emails you or puts them in an app, often the same working day. How providers charge for that, and the questions to ask, is covered in our guide to how post forwarding and scanning are priced.

Parcels split the market. The Hoxton Mix accepts letters only and turns parcels away⁵. Wrkspace in Preston and Bolton takes them for a £10 plus VAT add-on⁶. At the far end, Warehouse Address, which takes parcels and returns, runs a real West Midlands warehouse that receives ecommerce deliveries and processes customer returns, a job no letter-only mailbox can do⁸.

What does each option cost?

The mailbox tier of the virtual office market costs £10 to £35 a month for a business street address with post handling, before the registered office is added where it is not included. The cheapest complete option we hold, with registered office, director's address and trading use all in, is £20 a month with VAT included⁴.

Two of those need care. UK Postbox's business street addresses are quoted ex VAT on one page of its site and inc VAT on another, so its London Central address reads as either £17.50 or £21 depending where you look¹; the virtual office providers in Poole page shows where its head office sits. And Mail Boxes Etc's registered company address add-on is only £60 a year, but it cannot be bought without a mailbox, and MBE takes payment in full in advance with no refund on cancellation³. Prices are set per franchise, so the Reading virtual office and mailbox options will not match another town's. By contrast, British Monomarks' business street address at £198 for a year includes the registered office and states VAT is in the price², which makes it one of the easier plans to compare among the Bloomsbury WC1 addresses.

Which should you pick?

Pick by what the address has to do, not by the headline price:

1. Limited company, home address on the register: virtual office with a registered office and director's service address.
2. Limited company, address going on the website: virtual office with trading use and general business post accepted.
3. Sole trader, post only: a PO Box or a private mailbox, whichever is cheaper for your term and volume.
4. Anyone receiving parcels or returns: a mailbox or warehouse service that says in writing that it accepts them.

If you land on a virtual office, the comparison tool will shortlist virtual offices that handle all your business post and show the price once forwarding or scanning is added. Some providers pay us when you buy, and the commission arrangements we disclose play no part in the ranking.

Where these figures come from

Prices were read from each provider's own website on 8 September 2026.

1. UK Postbox business locations page: business street addresses £10 to £35 a month ex VAT, with registered office and director's service address listed as included. Its consumer pricing page shows London Central at £21 inc VAT against £17.50 ex VAT on the business page, and lists forwarding at 90p a letter plus postage and £1.80 per small parcel.
2. British Monomarks homepage: Business Street Address £198 for 12 months inc VAT, including a free registered office; Personal Post Box £120 for 12 months; Bloomsbury, WC1N 3AX.
3. Mail Boxes Etc store price pages for Reading, Norwich, Oxford Headington, Cambridge and Milton Keynes: registered company address £60 a year inc VAT, charged in addition to a business mailbox at £48 or £59 a month inc VAT; £30 registration; forwarding £4.25 per forward plus postage; terms require payment in full in advance with no refund on cancellation.
4. W1 Virtual Office homepage: VO Collect £20 a month inc VAT including registered office, director's service address and business address; VO Post £30.
5. The Hoxton Mix help centre: £24.99 a month ex VAT; mail only, parcels not accepted.
6. Wrkspace virtual office page: Virtual Office £25 a month plus VAT as a promotional rate against £30 standard; parcel handling £10 plus VAT add-on.
7. LowCost LetterBox registered office page: Virtual Office Collect from £40 a month plus VAT; Forward from £49.
8. Warehouse Address homepage and virtual address collection: a West Midlands warehouse offering registered office, mail, parcel and customer-returns plans with VAT included; we hold no verified plan price, so none is quoted.