Can People See Your Home Address on Companies House?
In most cases, your personal home address does not appear publicly on Companies House.
However, if you use your home address as your registered office address or director service address, that address can become publicly visible on the Companies House register.
This means anyone can search for the company and see that address.
For this reason, many founders choose to use a service address instead of their home address when setting up a UK company.
Public company records don’t affect everyone equally.
For some founders, putting a home address on a public registry is not just uncomfortable — it can be risky.
When you register a company in the UK, certain details become publicly visible through the Companies House register. This includes information linked to the people running the company.
For many founders, this feels like just another administrative step.
For others, it’s something they lose sleep over.
Not everyone has the same relationship with visibility.
Visibility Isn’t Neutral
I didn’t fully understand this until I started speaking with founders who were actively delaying incorporation because of it.
One founder told me they postponed registering their company for eight months because they didn’t want their address visible. They were worried about an ex who had previously shown up unannounced.
Another founder shared that they live with family members who don’t know about their business yet.
Someone else simply didn’t feel comfortable having their home publicly searchable online.
These situations aren’t rare. They’re just not discussed very often.
For some groups of founders, visibility can carry additional risks.
Women founders, LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs, online creators, and activists may face a higher risk of harassment or unwanted contact when their residential address becomes publicly searchable.
For founders living in shared accommodation, student housing, or transitional living situations, the idea of making a personal address part of a permanent public record can also feel deeply uncomfortable.
Public registers don’t account for any of this. They treat every founder the same — as if visibility carries the same cost for everyone.
But it doesn’t.
When “Just an Address” Becomes a Real Concern
Company registers were built for transparency, not personal safety.
Once an address appears on a public record, it often gets copied, indexed, and archived across multiple websites.
It may show up in search results.
It may appear on company data sites you’ve never visited.
Even if you update your details later, older versions can remain online in scraped databases or cached pages.
I’ve seen founders discover that their previous addresses were still circulating years after they had been changed on the official register.
The original record may be corrected — but the copies don’t always disappear.
Another common issue is that many founders don’t realise how public these records are until after they incorporate.
The information is technically disclosed during the process, but when you're navigating banking, accounting, and registration all at once, it’s easy to overlook.
By the time someone notices, the information is already public.
Privacy as Infrastructure, Not Secrecy
Address privacy isn’t about hiding.
It isn’t about avoiding accountability or doing something questionable.
It’s about having boundaries that make sense for your situation.
It’s about being able to run a legitimate company without your personal living situation becoming part of a permanent, searchable public record.
For some founders, this is simply a convenience.
For others, it’s peace of mind.
And for some, it’s the difference between incorporating now or postponing the decision altogether.
In the UK, tools like a director service address exist specifically to help founders maintain that boundary while staying fully compliant with Companies House requirements.
If you're unsure how these addresses work, you may want to read:
- What is a registered office address in the UK?
- Director service address vs registered office address
- Can you use a virtual office for HMRC?
Why I Started BetaOffice
I started building BetaOffice after repeatedly hearing the same story from founders.
They wanted to launch their company.
They were ready to start operating.
But they felt stuck because they didn’t want their home address publicly visible.
They weren’t trying to avoid compliance.
They simply wanted a professional business presence without exposing parts of their personal life that didn’t need to be public.
Address privacy shouldn’t be treated as a luxury feature.
For some founders, it’s not optional.
It’s essential.
FAQ
Is a director’s home address public on Companies House?
A director’s residential address is submitted to Companies House but it is not normally shown publicly. However, if the same address is used as a service address or registered office address, it can appear on the public record.
How do founders keep their address private?
Many founders use a director service address or virtual office address so their personal home address does not appear on the public company record.
Is using a service address legal in the UK?
Yes. Using a service address for directors is completely legal and widely used by founders, freelancers, and international entrepreneurs operating UK companies.
Lyatif Ahmed Redzheb — building BetaOffice, helping founders run UK companies without unnecessary exposure.
