How our Premium Registered Office works

Last month we explained why a company's registered office address is public, which is a problem for founders who'd rather not list their home. Our Premium Registered Office swaps that home address for a Sydney CBD address and the mail sent there is scanned so you can read it in your Registry dashboard.

It's an optional add-on when you register a company with us, available for proprietary companies limited by shares, the usual Pty Ltd company. Companies limited by guarantee can't use it, so a club or not-for-profit set up that way will need a different arrangement for its registered office. You choose it on the company registration form, at the time you register.

If you run the business from home, your home address then isn't listed as the company's registered office on the public register. ASIC sends formal letters and notices to the registered office, so those arrive at the Sydney address and show up as scans in your dashboard. Nothing gets missed, and your home is no longer listed as the company's registered office.

From registration to your first scan

1. You register your company on our company registration form: check the name, enter the directors and shareholders, add the Premium Registered Office and pick monthly, quarterly or yearly payment. An ABN application can go in the same order. We lodge the registration with ASIC and you get the company's ACN.
2. The instructing director, and any director who holds more than 25% of the shares, each get an email from us with a personal link.
3. Each of them follows the link and completes the ID check, which asks for ID, proof of address and anti-money laundering checks as part of the compliance requirements for a registered office.
4. Mail addressed to your company arrives at the Sydney address and is scanned, and you get an email when something new arrives. The email doesn't contain the scan.
5. You log in to your dashboard and read the scans there.

Take a company with two directors who each hold half the shares. Both are over 25%, so both get a link. A sole director who owns every share is one person and one check.

Scans only appear once the ID check is complete, so the sooner each director finishes theirs, the sooner you can read your company's mail. The notification email tells you something has arrived and nothing more, so you sign in to see what it is.

Paying, cancelling and what stays yours

You pay monthly, quarterly or yearly, whichever you picked, and the service renews automatically at the end of each term, so there's nothing to remember. If you want to stop, cancel from your dashboard and it ends at the end of your current term.

When it ends, the Sydney address is no longer your company's registered office, and the company needs a new one on ASIC's register. Every company must have a registered office, and it has to be an Australian street address. The choices are the ones we covered last month: your own premises, your home, an accountant's or other professional's office with their written consent, or another virtual or serviced office. Updating it is something the company does with ASIC. If you're not sure where to start, our team will point you in the right direction. Sort it out before your term runs out, so the register doesn't show an address you've stopped using.

The service changes your registered office and nothing else. Your company's principal place of business is still the place you actually run the business from, and ASIC's register shows that address too, so if that is your home it stays visible there. That's general information, and your accountant can tell you how it applies to your setup.

Because it's chosen at registration, the time to decide is while you're filling in the company form, and our team can talk it through with you on 1300 070 000, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm Melbourne time.