Setting up a limited company will introduce you to terminology you may not be familiar with, much of which pertains to the various addresses required for company incorporation at Companies House. In this blog post, we will focus on the correspondence address.

The correspondence address is also known as the service address

This address is relevant to the appointments in your company, including directors, secretaries, and people with significant control (PSCs).

• Directions, Shareholders, PSCs, and company Secretaries- an overviews.
• What is a registered office
• The SAIL address explained

When appointing a director, secretary, or PSC, you must provide both a correspondence address and a residential address.

There is some flexibility in choosing the correspondence address, but the residential address must be the officer’s actual home address.

The correspondence address is the official address for a company officer

In many ways, it is similar to the registered office address (the official address for the company). Here’s how:

• Both are listed on the Companies House public register, making them accessible to anyone via the Companies House search tool.
• No trading or business activity is required to take place at the address.
• Company officers do not need to be based at the address.
• Any official correspondence (such as mail from Companies House and HMRC) sent to the address must be seen by the addressee.
• Use of a residential address is permitted (though not recommended for privacy reasons).

The main difference, aside from their general definitions, is that the correspondence address can be located anywhere in the world, whereas the registered office must be in the UK.

How to change the correspondence address with Companies House

Updating the correspondence address is relatively simple.

If your company was formed by us (and is on our system):

1. Log in to your Online Company Manager.
2. Select ‘My Companies.’
3. Click on the appropriate company name (or select the ‘View’ icon next to the company name).
4. Scroll down to the officer for whom you wish to change the address and select ‘Edit.’
5. Select ‘Yes – I want to make this an official appointment at Companies House.’
6. Scroll down to ‘Choose Service Address’ and click on ‘Select.’
7. If the address is already being used elsewhere in your company (for example, if it’s the registered office), enter the first line of the address or the postcode and select the correct address from the menu. If it’s a new address, select ‘Add New Address’ and proceed to enter the new address.
8. Select ‘Update.’ The request is then sent to Companies House, where it’s normally processed within a matter of working hours.

If your company was not formed by us, you can make the change directly with Companies House. Alternatively, you can upload your company to our free Online Company Manager, which enables you to make changes to your company via our system.

To make the change directly with Companies House, you have two options:

1. Make the change online using Companies House WebFiling (select the ‘Register’ option if you don’t have an account yet).
2. Complete and return the appropriate Companies House paper forms:
   • CH01 – Change of director’s details
   • CH03 – Change the details of a secretary
   • PSC04 – Change of details of individual person with significant control (PSC)

About our service

As mentioned, once an officer appointment is accepted by Companies House, the address is immediately placed on the Companies House public register, where anyone can freely view it.

This exposes the officer to uninvited visitors and junk mail.

With our service address service, you can use our London address as the correspondence address for one company officer (one service is required per officer), protecting their address from the public register. Any official government mail that arrives at our address will be scanned and emailed to you free of charge.

Our service can be applied to existing company officers who wish to change their correspondence address or new officers who are in the process of being appointed. If your company has not yet been set up, we offer several company formation packages that include this service.