How to change a registered company address

Are you moving your company’s premises or offices? You may need to let Companies House know. Find out how to change a registered company address in this article.

We’ll walk you through how to change the registered address for your company by letting Companies House and HMRC know at the same time. Discover:

• How to change a registered company address
• Types of addresses you’ll need to keep updated
• What happens if you move across the UK?
• Do you have to tell HMRC about changes to your address?
• Handle your company filings more efficiently with Countingup

Learn how you can make your company’s admin easier using integrated software solutions like Countingup below.

Fortunately, updating addresses for your company or its shareholders is straightforward and won’t always need approval from your board. You can change the address details of your company in two ways: online or by post.

Companies House allows you to manage information about your company using their online WebFiling portal. To change details about your company, you’ll need:

• The email address and password you used to sign up with Companies House online
• The authentication code posted to you when your company was first registered with Companies House

Companies House will have sent this authentication code to the address you used when you originally registered, so make sure you have the document available. Once logged in, you can update the address details of your company easily.

If you’d prefer to let Companies House by post, there are various forms to choose from, depending on which type of address you need to update. We discuss the differences between each below, however, you’ll likely need form AD01 to update your company’s registered office address. 

Once you’ve filled out the relevant form, you’ll need to make sure to use the correct postal address for where your company is incorporated. Companies House also provides the address for each of their three offices on the form you’ve printed out.  

Even if you’ve begun using your new offices, your address will not officially change until Companies House has registered it. 

Therefore, you may wish to keep some form of access to your previous address in case Companies House or HMRC contact you about something important until the change has gone through.

Companies House recognises three types of addresses: registered office, service, and residential.

Registered office addresses are the official and publicly available address of the company. 

Government departments like Companies House and HMRC will send notices and important documents to this address unless a service address is provided. If you use your home address as the company’s registered office, this will appear on the public register published by Companies House and cannot be removed after you’ve declared it. 

Service addresses are the addresses belonging to each director, sometimes called a ‘correspondence address’. The service address for directors can be the same as the registered office address for the company, their private residential address, or somewhere completely different. This address type is in place to allow members of the public to contact directors about the company. Although nowadays, it’s more likely that you’ll receive an email or LinkedIn message nowadays. 

Finally, residential addresses are the private and domestic home addresses of company directors and shareholders. These address details are not publicly listed by Companies House and are kept on a separate private register.

You’ll need to keep a record of and update any changes to each of these types of addresses for your company and its directors.

Companies House incorporates companies in one of the following regions across the UK:

• England and Wales, with offices in London and Cardiff
• Scotland, located in Edinburgh
• Northern Ireland, located in Belfast

Therefore, as you change your company’s address, it needs to be within the same region it was originally incorporated under. For example, if your company has its address in Liverpool and was originally incorporated within England and Wales, your new registered office address must be somewhere else in England or Wales.

As your company grows, you may face the decision to move for a number of reasons. For example, certain areas in Scotland are stronger for energy development while financial services are strongly linked to the city of London. Therefore, if you move from one region of the UK to another, you’ll need to re-incorporate your company with Companies House in your new area. 

When registering changes to your company’s details online or by post, Companies House will automatically tell HMRC what should be changed for their records also.

Therefore, you only need to follow the steps outlined above to tell both organisations about changes to your company’s address.

Keeping on top of your financial and bookkeeping records can be a time consuming and stressful task. Countingup makes it simple. 

Countingup is the business current account with free, built-in accounting software. The app comes with free built-in accounting software that automates the time-consuming aspects of bookkeeping. You’ll be able to view live cash flow insights, get automatic expense categorisation, and create customised invoices in seconds – saving you time to focus on running your business. 
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