What is a correspondence address?

Setting up a limited company will expose you to terminology that you’ve probably never come across before. A large amount of this is related to the different addresses you need to provide to get your company incorporated at Companies House. In this blog post, we’re going to take a look at 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).

• Directors, shareholders, PSCs, and company secretaries – an overview
• What is a registered office address?
• The SAIL address explained

When appointing a director, secretary or PSC, you will need to provide a correspondence address and a residential address.

There is some flexibility with what address can be used as the correspondence address, whereas the residential address must be the actual home address of the officer. 

The correspondence address is the official address for a company officer

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

• They’re both on the Companies House public register – meaning anyone can freely view it via the Companies House search tool
• No trading or business activity has to take place at the address
• Company officers do not need to be based at the address in any way
• 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 (but not recommended for privacy reasons)

The only difference, aside from their general definitions, is that the correspondence address can be based anywhere in the world, whereas the registered office must be located 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 so 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, 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 brand 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. This enables you to make changes to your company via our system. When it comes to making the change directly with Companies House, you have two choices:

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 has been accepted by Companies House, the address is immediately placed on the Companies House public register, where it can be viewed freely by anyone. 

This opens the officer up to uninvited and unwanted 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 then 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 a number of company formation packages that include the service.

• Use our address as your service address (correspondence address)

We hope you have found this post helpful. Please get in touch via a comment if you have any questions.