All UK companies are legally required to maintain a registered office in the country in which they are incorporated. Because of this, companies without a physical presence in the UK are obliged to establish a UK office, or alternatively use a Registered Office Service provider when forming a UK company. There are a number of benefits in choosing the latter option.

A UK Registered Office Service provider offers a new or small company an official business address, possibly enhancing its reputation. This is beneficial for start-up companies, which commonly operate from the residential address of a director or shareholder, and if a company uses a residential address as its registered office, that address will be on the public record at Companies House and also has to be disclosed to customers, suppliers, etc on all types of correspondence and communications. As well as the benefit to your reputation, using a UK Registered Office Service as your directors’ service address enables you to maintain the privacy of your residential addresses.

Since October 2009, directors, shareholders and other officers of the company can give a ‘service address’ instead of their residential address, in order that residential addresses no longer appear on the Companies House register available to be inspected by the public. Accordingly, using a Registered Office Service as your directors’ service address enables you to keep your residential addresses confidential.

In most cases a UK Registered Office Service is not particularly expensive and will commonly also provide a number of additional benefits. Your company name can be displayed at the registered office, a reasonable volume of post (typically, this includes all post from Companies House, HM Revenue & Customs and a limited number of miscellaneous items per year) can be forwarded to you, and mail requiring a signature (such as registered post) can also be accepted.

Additionally, all the necessary resolutions and filings to inform Companies House of the alteration of your registered office location can be prepared and filed on your behalf. As an alternative, and if the UK Registered Office Service provider is also a company formation agent, your company can be formed with the UK Registered Office Service address from the start, so as to make sure that your private address never appears on the public register.

Further benefits can be included with the Registered Office Service by separate arrangement. For instance, you can have additional secretarial services for your company, and larger volumes of post forwarded to an address of your choosing. You can also have parcels forwarded and accepted, and the company’s statutory registers held at the registered office.

Making use of a UK Registered Office Service provider provides many advantages, especially for companies that don’t have a physical presence in the UK and for those that do not have their own business address and/or need their residential address to remain private, The registered office service is therefore of great use, especially to foreign Companies who wish to , because any correspondence that they receive can be forwarded on abroad by a separate arrangement, which enables them to keep on top of UK filing requirements at a modest expense and with minimum difficulties.

Most directors quite understandably prefer to spend the majority of their time and effort in promoting and developing a new business rather than struggling with associated legal complexities. As a result of this, one of the more difficult requirements for a small or start-up company is often ensuring compliance with the provisions set out in the Companies Act 2006 that deal with the necessity of a registered office.

With the assistance of a Registered Office Service provider, a company can considerably reduce the many hurdles created by the Companies Act 2006. As a result, directors can be left to perform their business in the most efficient manner.