How to Remove Your Home Address from the Companies House Register

If you want to remove or protect your home address from the Companies House register, the good news is that it is possible. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to protect personal address information. Removal does not clear your address in one go – you name each document and pay a fee for each one. You must justify protection with a real risk of violence or intimidation, and you cannot get it while your home address remains the company’s registered office.

What Address Information Is Held on the Companies House Register?

Every UK limited company must file certain information with Companies House, and anyone can search it online. This information includes the company’s registered office address, where you can receive official mail. The register also shows a service address, sometimes called a correspondence address, for each officer. Your usual residential address is not published, but credit reference agencies and specified public authorities can access it. If you provide your home address as the registered office or service address, it will appear on the public register.

Records remain publicly visible for as long as a company is active, and for 20 years after dissolution. After that, some records go to The National Archives for permanent preservation and the rest are destroyed. However, Companies House has currently stopped transferring and destroying these records while it reviews how long to keep them. This is why many directors choose to use a third-party registered company address, such as those provided by company formation agents.

Protecting an address has also become harder since 11 August 2026, when Companies House withdrew the online application for address protection while it develops new services.

Why Stop Companies House from Publishing My Address?

Most company founders and directors choose to remove their home address from the Companies House register for privacy. This is especially the case for freelancers, sole traders and small business owners. They often register their company using their home address as the registered office, service address or correspondence address, only to realise it is visible to anyone who searches the free, public Companies House register. 

Directors may also want to keep their personal home address off the register for many other reasons. They include personal preference, threats of violence or abuse and working in professions that attract targeted hostility. Concerns about identity theft or fraud are another common reason. In some cases, you may want to remove your home address because you accidentally or unknowingly listed it as a correspondence or service address without realising it would appear on the permanent public register. 

Can I Remove My Home Address from the Companies House Register?

Yes, in most cases you can have your home address removed from the Companies House register. You can have your home address removed from individual documents using form SR01, or you can apply for protection of your personal information. The best route depends on which address it is and why you are removing it. 

Removal vs Protection

Removal allows you to remove your home address from specific documents already on the public register (e.g. a confirmation statement). Unlike protection, you do not need to prove any risk or threat, since removal covers ordinary cases like accidentally using a home address as a correspondence or service address. You also cannot suppress an address that is still your company’s current, live registered office; you must change it first.

You can apply for protection of your personal information if you face a serious risk of violence or intimidation. The risk must be linked to your company and can extend to someone you live with. Examples include being targeted by activists or working in a high-risk industry like defence. However, you cannot protect an address that is also the company’s registered office.

Method	Who it is for
SR01 (standard address suppression)	– Anyone who used their home address as a registered office, service or correspondence address – No risk or harm needs to be shown
Protect your personal information	– Directors, LLP members and people with significant control (PSCs) – Facing serious risk of violence or intimidation – Evidence of risk required

Method 1 – Removal Using Form SR01

You can ask to have your home address removed from the register if it was ever listed as a correspondence address, a service address or a company’s registered office. The same form can also remove your signature and business occupation, if the filing required you to state them. It can additionally remove the day of your date of birth from documents filed before 10 October 2015. The route is set out in section 1088 of the Companies Act 2006 and the Companies (Disclosure of Address) Regulations 2009.

It is important to bear in mind the following:

• If you used your home address as a correspondence address, you may need to provide a replacement address. This applies where you still have an active role in the company and the address is your current address.
• If you used your home address as a registered office address and it is still active, you will need to change the registered office address before you can apply.
• If your home address is also the company’s single alternative inspection location (SAIL), you will need to change the SAIL address before you can apply.
• If your company is dissolved, you must wait 6 months before applying to remove a registered office address.

Filling in the Companies House SR01 form only changes the specific documents you list, and you must name each one individually. Once completed, you will need to send the application form manually by email or post, and pay the fee for each document listed.

How Much Does It Cost to Remove Your Address from Companies House?

It costs £34 per document to remove your home address from an individual filing. Your address may appear on several separate documents, such as confirmation statements and appointment forms. The total cost therefore multiplies by the number of documents that need clearing.

What Happens After You Send Your SR01?

Companies House will let you know once it has processed your application. They do not publish a processing time for applications of this nature.

What Happens When Your Application Is Approved?

If your application goes through, Companies House removes your personal details from whichever documents you have named. It hides only part of the address if you are no longer an officer or the company is dissolved. The same applies where the address was previously the registered office. For a UK address, it then shows only the first half of the postcode. The process takes longer if you ask to change more documents. 

Method 2 – Protection

The Companies House address protection application route is only available to directors, LLP members and people with significant control (PSCs) who are at serious risk of violence or intimidation. There are two different types of protection:

1. Protection of your home address from credit reference agencies – this is available to directors, LLP members and PSCs
2. Protection of all of your information – for PSCs only

Home address protection is granted under section 243 of the Companies Act 2006 for directors and LLP members. For PSCs it is granted under section 790ZF, and full protection rests on regulations made under section 1088.

If you are a PSC, you can apply for both in a single application. Each application costs £100, whether it is for the home address alone, for all of a PSC’s information or for both. Where protection for the home address is already in place, an abbreviated application costs £15.

It is advisable to provide robust evidence with your application, such as evidence of intimidation or threats of violence, to justify protecting your address. Unlike the SR01, there is no form to download for this route – Companies House issues the correct paper form on request and will only accept it on the coloured paper provided.

Who Can Apply for Protection and When?

Applications can come from the individual themselves, or from the company or LLP acting on their behalf. You can apply before incorporation, before taking up a role or even after your details have already reached credit reference agencies. Where the company or LLP has not yet been incorporated, a subscriber to the memorandum can apply. Applying early means Companies House can withhold your details from credit reference agencies while it reviews your application.

You can also apply before being formally appointed, and you do not need to tell the company you are doing so. Companies House advises PSCs seeking full protection to give the company advance notice so it can handle their information properly. Protected or not, companies must not disclose home address details. The only exceptions are the limited circumstances that section 241 of the Companies Act 2006 allows.

What Happens After You Apply for Protection?

Useful evidence includes things like a police incident number, proof of a threat or attack, or examples showing you work for or supply an organisation that puts you at risk. Once your application arrives, Companies House writes to confirm it has your application, issues an identification number if you are a PSC and reviews your reasons. This normally takes at least 30 days and can stretch to a year for complex cases, during which your information stays protected. 

What Happens If Your Application Is Accepted or Refused?

If Companies House accepts your application, it protects your details from the moment it registers the application, and the protection stays in place indefinitely, until you tell it that you no longer need it. For PSCs granted full protection, Companies House removes their details from the public register as soon as reasonably practicable. Companies House can withdraw protection if a court finds the applicant guilty of a false statement offence. It reverses an SR01 removal on the same grounds.

If Companies House refuses your application, it will notify you within 7 days and refund any fee you paid. Your address becomes available to credit reference agencies once the appeal window passes. You can appeal to the High Court (or Court of Session in Scotland) within 28 days. Where a PSC applied to protect all of their information, that information goes onto the public register 42 days after the date of the notice.

What Is the PROOF Scheme?

Further protection is available through the Companies House PROOF scheme. This is for companies, not individuals within the company. Once a company joins PROOF, Companies House will accept only certain key documents filed online using the company’s unique authentication code. It rejects any paper version of those forms and sends them back to the registered office address. This closes a vulnerability that fraudsters have exploited. Companies House traditionally accepted paper forms ‘in good faith’ without rigorously checking signatures. That made it easy to submit false paperwork and hijack a company’s records.

Getting the Right Address at Incorporation Is the Only Real Solution

While you can remove or protect personal home address details on the Companies House register, the only real solution is to get the correct address at incorporation. Any attempt to remove or protect an address may still leave details exposed if done incorrectly. Protection itself is limited: it stops disclosure to credit reference agencies, but the police still have access. It does not remove the address from documents already filed – that takes a separate application for each document. 

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