This blog post was originally published in 2018. Visit our guidance page for the latest information on this topic.
You’d be surprised how many letters are returned to us marked 'gone away' or 'not at this address'. Go on, have a guess? I’ll tell you at the end of this blog.
As a business grows, it often means taking on more staff, offering a wider range of products or needing more storage. You might outgrow your office space and need to relocate. Often, a growing company will move to a larger building or a busier location, and this may happen on several occasions if you’re a successful business.
When you move, there are a few people you need to tell. These include your customers, your bank, legal advisers, accountant, HMRC and one you may have overlooked – Companies House.
If you change your registered office address, you have a duty to tell us within 14 days, so we can update your records.
Change your address
Changing your registered office address is quick and easy if you use the Companies House Service. There’s no fee to change your registered office address, but you’ll need your email address and your authentication code.
- Go to the Companies House Service.
- Find your company.
- Click on the “file for this company” tab and follow the instructions.
- Enter your new building name or number and postcode. You can find the address or enter it manually.
- Submit your changes.
We’ll send you a confirmation email within a few minutes.
Your registered office
Your new address must meet certain requirements. Your company’s registered office address must be in the same part of the UK that the company was incorporated – England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. You cannot change from one jurisdiction to another.
It must be a physical address and not a PO Box. You can only use a PO Box address if you also provide the full address (including post code) of the physical building.
Please remember, your registered office address will appear on the public record. So, if you’re thinking of using your home address, it’ll be available for anyone to see. For this reason, many companies use a different address to receive correspondence.
If you only have your home address to offer, there are third-parties who can provide registered office services. You can find a list of service providers and agents on our website.
Send us your information online
Private limited companies can also use our online service to send us other information. For example, you can:
- file your confirmation statement
- appoint or change a director’s details
- file your accounts
- register a mortgage charge
Using our online service helps to reduce the amount of mail that we send out. Filing online is quicker and reduces the chances of making errors, as many of the fields will be pre-filled or prompt you to complete.
eReminders service
Another way you can help us save paper and postage, is to sign up for our eReminders service. We’ll send you email reminders when your accounts and confirmation statements are due for filing.
To join the eReminder Service, you can log into your Webfiling account and select the ‘Join eReminder Service’ link.
Your company can register a maximum of 4 email addresses for eReminders, and you can file documents immediately from a link in the reminder. If your company joins our eReminder service, you will not receive any further paper reminder letters for accounts or confirmation statements.
Even though we’d like to be Elvis in the song 'Return to Sender' and take each letter and place it in your hand… sadly, we cannot. So, make sure you tell us if you move and get those important letters sent to you on time. Better still, sign up for eReminders.
How many letters were returned to us?
In 2016, our post room had over 500,000 pieces of returned mail.
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