A private company limited by shares boasts several benefits to business owners who choose to use the structure. Limited liability, tax efficiency, and prestige are all regularly cited as the major advantages. However, when it comes to the drawbacks, one of the most commonly mentioned issues is the amount of private information that is published once a company has been set up.
With this in mind, in this article we demonstrate how you can protect your privacy when setting up a limited company.
Never use your residential address as a public-facing address
As soon as a company has been set up, certain information is immediately placed on the Companies House public register, which is free to access for any interested party.
This is mainly unavoidable. However, it is possible to shield your private address from the public register, a significant step in protecting your privacy, and safeguarding yourself from uninvited visitors and ID fraud.
When setting up your company, you can do this by not using your residential address as the:
- Registered office address
- Director’s correspondence address (also known as a service address)
- Person with significant control’s (PSC) correspondence address
- Secretary’s correspondence address (if you choose to appoint a secretary)
- Subscriber’s (initial shareholder’s) address
- SAIL address (if you use one)
All of these addresses are placed on the public register. However, Companies House allows the use of a non-residential location for each of them.
Whilst you must provide a residential address when appointing a director or PSC (whether this is at the same time as setting up the company or after), this information is not made publicly available, unless it is also being used as the correspondence address (or as the registered office address).
All you need to do is provide the genuine residential address when it’s requested, but use an alternative address that you have permission to use as the correspondence address. This practice is permitted by Companies House.
When naming shareholders, you only need to provide an ‘address’, with no mention of a residential or correspondence address. So again, you just need to ensure that you provide a non-residential address.
Use our address services when setting up your company
If you haven’t set up your company yet, we can help register your company and protect your residential address from the public register.
We offer several company formation packages that include our Registered Office Address Service and Service Address. This means you can use our Covent Garden, London address as your company’s registered office and as a correspondence address for one director, PSC, or secretary in your company.
As well as shielding your residential address from the public register, this also boosts your business profile, as you’re placing its public-facing addresses in one of the most prestigious locations in the world.
See the below links for more information:
- Privacy Package, £67.99 +VAT
- Privacy Plus Package, £79.99 +VAT
- Fully Inclusive Package, £129.99 +VAT
- Non-Residents Package, £159.99 +VAT
What do Companies House do with residential address information?
As mentioned, Companies House always request residential address information when you name a director and PSC. This isn’t published, unless you also provide the residential address as the registered office address or correspondence address.
However, Companies House will pass residential information on to the police and other public authorities when necessary. For example, if they suspect that your business is engaged in illegal activity.
The residential address will also be provided to credit reference agencies. If the work you do puts you at potential risk, it is possible to request that your home address is not passed on to these agencies. If this applies to you, we recommend contacting Companies House before providing your address.
What information becomes publicly available when you set up a company
Below is the information that anyone can access for a private company limited by shares using the Companies House search the register tool. None of the below information can currently be withheld from the public register:
Company information
- Company name
- Company number
- Registered office address
- Company status (for example, ‘active’)
- Company type (for example, ‘Private limited company’)
- Incorporation date
- Annual accounts; next made up to date, next due date, last made up to date
- Confirmation statement; next statement date, next statement due, last statement date
- Nature of business (the SIC codes that have been selected)
- Any previous names that the company has had
Director information
- Full name
- Correspondence address
- Date of birth (month and year, not day)
- Date appointed
- Nationality
- Country of residence
- Occupation
If a corporate director has been appointed, you will be able to see the company name, company number, company status, correspondence address, date appointed, and company type.
PSC information
- Full name
- Correspondence address
- Notified on date (when Companies House were informed about the PSC)
- Date of birth (month and year, not day)
- Nationality
- Country of residence
- Nature of control (for example, ‘Ownership of shares – 75% or more’)
If a corporate PSC has been named, you will be able to see the company name, company number, correspondence address, notified on date, legal form, place registered (for example, ‘Companies House’), incorporated in location (for example, ‘Scotland’), and nature of control.
Secretary information (if one has been appointed)
- Full name
- Correspondence address
- Date appointed
The information remains the same if the company has a corporate secretary.
Shareholder information
- Full name
- Address
- Class of shares held
- Number of shares held
- Shares; Class, number, currency, nominal value, paid/unpaid
The information remains the same if the company has a corporate shareholder.
Other information
As and when a company files its confirmation statement and annual accounts, these documents are also made publicly available, through the ‘Filing history’ tab on the Companies House search. Depending on the type of accounts that are filed, this can mean that some of the company’s financial information is disclosed.
For example, if it files ‘Total exemption full accounts’, anyone can view the company’s balance sheets, which would be made up of financial information about assets, creditors, capital and reserves.
Furthermore, when the company makes any changes, such as updating the registered office address or changing the correspondence address of a director, the documents that enable the changes are made publicly available.
What to do if your company has already been set up
If your company has already been formed with a residential address as the registered office address and/or correspondence address, the first thing you should do is update the address in question to a non-residential address.
This will make the residential address harder to locate on the public register, as someone would have to actively look back over previous company filings to locate the old address, rather than it being presented to them as soon as they complete a search on your company.
If you don’t have an alternative address to use as the registered office of correspondence address, our Registered Office Address Service and Service Address can be purchased separately. Find out more about these services, including the extra benefits of using a Covent Garden address for your company and people, by clicking on the below links:
Next, you should take the necessary steps to remove the residential address from the public register.
At the moment, Companies House allow you to ‘suppress’ residential address information from individual documents for a fee of £32, if it has previously been used as the correspondence address or for any other reason (except if it was used as the registered office address or SAIL address).
For example, you can apply to have the address removed from your company’s ‘Incorporation’ documents, which anyone can view from the Companies House public register.
Download the necessary form here
New suppression legislation
Under new measures that have yet to be introduced, you will also be able to ‘suppress’ a residential address from the public register if has previously been used as a registered office address. The new legislation will also allow you to hide:
- Director’s and PSC’s full date of birth (documents registered after 10 October 2015 only have the month and year displayed – so this isn’t appropriate for newer companies, however, companies formed before 10 October have the full date displayed)
- Director occupation
- Signatures
We will update this blog accordingly, as soon as the new measures come into force.
Thanks for reading
When registering a company, some information will inevitably enter the public domain. However, through facilities such as our Registered Office Address Service and Service Address, it is possible to protect your privacy. Follow the advice covered in this article to do this.
Please get in touch if you have any questions and we’ll be happy to help.
