How to Change Your Registered Office Address: UK Limited Company Guide for 2026

Every year, roughly half a million UK limited companies change their registered office address with Companies House. Some are outgrowing a bedroom-table operation. Some are moving out of a co-working space that closed. Some just realised — usually after a penalty notice arrived at an address nobody checks — that their registered office has been a liability, not an asset, since the day they incorporated.

The good news: updating your registered office is one of the simplest Companies House filings you will ever make. Form AD01 takes five minutes online and costs nothing. The bad news: getting it wrong — or not doing it at all — can mean missed HMRC correspondence, strike-off notices you never see, and a public register that broadcasts your home address to anyone with a search engine. This guide walks through the entire process, the rules that catch founders out, and when it makes sense to switch to a professional service address.

What is a registered office address and why does it matter?

Your registered office address is not just a line on a form. It is a legal requirement under section 86 of the Companies Act 2006. Every UK limited company must have one at all times, and it must be a physical address — not a PO Box — in the same jurisdiction where the company was incorporated (England and Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland).

The registered office serves three functions:

• Official correspondence. All Companies House communications — authentication codes, strike-off warnings, penalty notices — are sent here. HMRC sends the company's Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) here too, though general HMRC correspondence can be directed to a separate address.
• Legal service. Court documents and statutory notices can be served at this address. If no one is there to receive them, the company may still be deemed to have been served.
• Public record. The address is displayed on the Companies House public register, visible to anyone who searches for your company. It also appears on business letters, order forms, and the company website (s. 82 CA 2006).

That last point is the one most founders underestimate. If your registered office is your flat in Clapham, that address is permanently searchable on the Companies House register. Even after you change it, historical filings — including past registered office addresses — remain visible on the public record. This is one reason many founders choose to use a professional service address from day one.

Why founders change their registered office

In our experience at Filing HQ, most registered-office changes fall into one of five categories:

1. Moving home. If you used your home address as the registered office, moving house means your statutory post starts arriving at an address you no longer control. This is the most common — and most urgent — reason to file an AD01.
2. Privacy. You incorporated at home, and now your personal address is on the public register, attracting junk mail, cold callers, or worse. (We wrote a full guide on the risks of using your home as a registered office.)
3. Professional image. A London service address carries more weight with investors, banks, and clients than a residential postcode. A Mayfair or City address on your letterhead signals established, credible, serious.
4. Outgrowing a virtual office provider. You signed up for a cheap mail-forwarding service at incorporation. The service has become unreliable, the provider has changed terms, or you want someone who actually scans and forwards post promptly.
5. Compliance problems. A confirmation statement was missed because post piled up at an unmonitored address. A strike-off warning arrived but nobody saw it. An HMRC penalty notice sat unopened for weeks. These are the changes we handle most urgently.

Whatever the reason, the filing process is the same. Let's walk through it.

How to change your registered office address: the AD01 step by step

Form AD01 is the notification you file with Companies House to update your registered office address. It is not an application — you do not need permission. You are simply notifying the registrar that the address has changed.

Step 1: Check your Articles of Association

Before you file anything, check who has the authority to change the registered office. Under the Model Articles for Private Companies Limited by Shares, the directors can resolve to change the registered office by board resolution. Some bespoke Articles require a shareholder resolution instead, or impose restrictions (for example, the address must remain within a particular jurisdiction).

If you are using Model Articles — the default for most companies incorporated online — a simple board decision is enough. Record the resolution in your board minutes.

Step 2: Confirm the new address qualifies

The new address must meet three requirements:

• It must be a physical address — not a PO Box.
• It must be in the same jurisdiction as the company's current registration. If your company is registered in England and Wales, the new address must also be in England or Wales. You cannot move the registered office to Scotland or Northern Ireland without a more complex re-registration process.
• You must have the right to receive post at that address. If you are using a third-party address (a friend's house, an accountant's office, a serviced address provider), make sure you have explicit written agreement.

Step 3: File form AD01 online

The fastest way to file is through Companies House WebFiling. You will need:

• Your company number
• Your authentication code (the six-character code posted to your current registered office after incorporation)
• The full new address including postcode

Log in to WebFiling, select your company, choose "Change a registered office address", enter the new address, and submit. The change typically takes effect within a few hours, often faster. There is no fee for filing AD01 online.

You can also file a paper AD01, but it takes longer to process and there is rarely a reason to use it.

Step 4: Update your statutory registers

The Companies House register is the public record — but it is not your company's legal record. Under the Companies Act 2006, every company must maintain its own statutory registers. After filing the AD01, update the registered office address in your company's internal records. If your statutory registers are held at the old registered office, arrange to move or update them.

Step 5: Notify everyone else

Companies House is only one piece of the puzzle. After the AD01 is accepted, you should also update your registered office address with:

• HMRC — update your Corporation Tax registration, VAT registration (if applicable), and PAYE scheme (if applicable). HMRC does not automatically pick up the change from Companies House.
• Your bank — most business bank accounts have the registered office on file for KYC purposes.
• Your accountant or company secretary — they need the correct address for filings and correspondence.
• Insurance providers — business insurance policies often reference the registered office.
• Your company website and stationery — under s. 82 of the Companies Act 2006, the registered office must appear on business letters, order forms, and the company website. Update all of these.

What happens after you file the AD01

Once Companies House accepts your AD01, the new address appears on the public register immediately (or within a few hours for online filings). A few things to be aware of:

• The old address remains visible. Historical filings — including every previous registered office address — stay on the Companies House public record permanently. If privacy was your reason for changing, the old address is still searchable. This is a strong argument for using a professional address from the start rather than your home.
• The confirmation statement will reflect the new address. Your next confirmation statement will show the updated registered office. No separate notification is needed for this — Companies House updates automatically.
• Post redirection is your responsibility. Companies House does not forward post from the old address. Neither does HMRC. If there is a gap between the change being filed and all correspondents being notified, mail may still arrive at the old address. Consider setting up Royal Mail redirection if you are moving from a premises you will lose access to.

Common mistakes when changing your registered office

The AD01 itself is straightforward, but the process around it trips founders up more than you might expect. These are the mistakes we see most often:

1. Forgetting to update HMRC separately

This is the most common error by a wide margin. Founders assume that filing the AD01 with Companies House automatically updates their address with HMRC. It does not. HMRC and Companies House are separate organisations with separate records. If you have registered for Corporation Tax, VAT, or PAYE, you must update each one individually. Miss this and your CT600 reminders, VAT returns, and PAYE correspondence continue going to the old address.

2. Not checking jurisdiction rules

A company registered in England and Wales cannot simply move its registered office to Edinburgh. The registered office must remain in the same jurisdiction — England and Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland. Moving across jurisdictions requires re-registration, which is a different (and more involved) process under Part 1 of the Companies Act 2006.

3. Filing the AD01 but not monitoring the new address

If you are moving from one unmonitored address to another unmonitored address, you have changed the location of the problem, not solved it. The most common version of this: a founder changes the registered office to a friend's flat, a co-working hot desk, or a cheap virtual office — then discovers three months later that nobody has been opening the post. Companies House does not send email alerts for most statutory correspondence. If nobody opens the letters, you are exposed.

4. Losing access to the authentication code

Your Companies House authentication code was posted to your registered office when the company was incorporated. If you have lost it, you will need to request a new one — and the replacement is posted to the current registered office. If you are changing the registered office because you no longer have access to the old address, you need the authentication code first. This can create a catch-22. Plan ahead: request a replacement code before you lose access to the old premises.

5. Assuming a PO Box will work

PO Boxes are not valid registered office addresses. Companies House will reject an AD01 that lists a PO Box. The address must be a physical premises where documents can be hand-delivered or served. Virtual office addresses and serviced office addresses are fine — as long as they are real physical locations, not forwarding-only postal services.

When to use a professional registered office service

Filing the AD01 is free and takes minutes. So why would you pay for a professional registered office? For most growing companies, the answer comes down to three things: privacy, reliability, and image.

Privacy

If you are a sole director running a company from home, your home address is on the public register — visible to clients, competitors, data scrapers, and anyone else. A professional registered office removes your home from the equation. It does not erase the historical record (your old address stays in past filings), but it prevents your current home from being exposed going forward.

This matters more than ever. Since ECCTA expanded the identity verification requirements from 18 November 2025, Companies House has been tightening up transparency rules — but that transparency cuts both ways. The same public register that helps prevent fraud also makes every director's service address searchable worldwide. Using a professional registered office is the most straightforward way to separate your business identity from your personal address.

Reliability

A managed registered office means someone is opening, scanning, and forwarding your statutory post every working day. Authentication codes, UTR letters, confirmation statement reminders, penalty notices, strike-off warnings — all handled. You get notified instantly instead of discovering a problem when you happen to check a pile of unopened envelopes.

This is especially important for founders who travel frequently, live abroad, or simply do not work from a fixed office. If you are running a UK limited company from abroad, a monitored registered office in the UK is practically essential.

Professional image

A London service address on your Companies House listing, invoices, and website communicates something to clients, partners, and investors. It signals that your company is established, credible, and takes itself seriously. For B2B companies, particularly those in professional services, fintech, or consulting, a prestigious address can influence how prospects perceive you before they have read a single word of your pitch.

Registered office vs. service address vs. trading address

Founders often confuse these three, and the distinction matters:

• Registered office address — the official address filed with Companies House under s. 86 CA 2006. All statutory correspondence goes here. It must appear on the public register and on company stationery.
• Service address (director) — the address shown on the public register for each director, under s. 163 CA 2006. It is the address where legal documents can be served on the director personally. It can be the same as the registered office, or different. Many directors use the company's registered office as their service address to keep their home address off the public register.
• Trading address (SAIL) — the address where the company actually does business. This is not filed with Companies House (unless it is also the registered office) but may need to be registered with HMRC for VAT purposes. A Single Alternative Inspection Location (SAIL) can be filed if the company's statutory registers are kept at a different address from the registered office.

You can have the same address for all three, or three different addresses. Most sole-director companies start with one address for everything (usually home), then split them as the company grows. The cleanest setup for privacy: a professional registered office for the company, the same address as the director's service address, and your actual office or home as the trading address — never on the public register at all.

What it costs

The AD01 filing itself is free — there is no Companies House fee to change your registered office address, whether you file online or on paper.

If you are moving to a professional registered office service, costs vary. At Filing HQ, a registered office address with mail scanning and forwarding starts from a few pounds per month — significantly less than the cost of a single late-filing penalty (£150 for the first offence on annual accounts), let alone the £468+ cost of administrative restoration if your company is struck off because a warning notice went to an address nobody was checking.

The confirmation statement itself now costs £50 online (or £110 on paper) — a cost you pay annually regardless of your registered office. Getting the address right is about preventing the far larger costs that come from missing what arrives there.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to change a registered office address?

If you file form AD01 online through Companies House WebFiling, the change is typically processed within a few hours. Paper filings take longer — usually 5 to 10 working days. Once accepted, the new address appears on the public register immediately.

Is there a fee to change the registered office?

No. Filing form AD01 with Companies House is completely free, whether you file online or on paper. The only costs involved are those of the new address itself — if you are switching to a professional service address — and any associated mail forwarding.

Can I use a PO Box as my registered office address?

No. The registered office must be a physical address where documents can be hand-delivered and legally served. PO Boxes, mail-only forwarding addresses, and any address that does not correspond to a real, accessible premises will be rejected by Companies House.

Can I move my registered office from England to Scotland?

Not with form AD01. The registered office must stay within the jurisdiction where the company was incorporated — England and Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland. Moving across jurisdictions requires a formal re-registration process under Part 1 of the Companies Act 2006, which involves passing a special resolution and filing additional forms.

Will changing my registered office remove my old address from the public record?

No. Historical filings remain on the Companies House register indefinitely. Your previous registered office address will still appear in the filing history, even after the change. This is why we advise using a professional address from the start — once a home address is on the record, it stays there. For privacy-conscious founders, the best approach is to prevent your home address from appearing in the first place.

Do I need to update HMRC when I change my registered office?

Yes. Companies House and HMRC are separate systems. Filing form AD01 does not update your address with HMRC. You need to separately update your Corporation Tax registration, and if applicable, your VAT registration and PAYE scheme. Failure to do so means HMRC correspondence — including tax return reminders and penalty notices — will continue going to the old address.