GUIDE FOR ACCOUNTANTS
How to offer registered office services — without drowning in the post.
Hosting registered offices is one of the stickiest recurring revenue lines a practice can add: clients rarely move their statutory address, and the fee renews every year. This guide covers what it actually takes — the AML position, the address rules, pricing, the agreement, and the workflow that decides whether the service makes money.
Check your AML supervision covers it
Providing a registered office address is a Trust or Company Service Provider (TCSP) activity under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017. Most accountancy firms are already supervised for TCSP work through their professional body (ICAEW, ACCA, and others) — but confirm it explicitly before hosting your first company. Firms without body supervision register with HMRC for TCSP.
Make sure your address qualifies
Since the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, a registered office must be an "appropriate address": documents delivered there must be expected to come to the attention of a person acting for the company, and delivery must be capable of acknowledgement. A staffed office qualifies; a PO Box on its own does not.
Decide what the service includes
The address alone, or the address plus mail handling? Same-day scanning and forwarding is what clients actually value — and what justifies charging more than the £50-a-year address mills. Decide the forwarding method, turnaround time, and what happens with non-statutory mail before you promise anything.
Price it deliberately
The market runs from roughly £100 to £300+ per company per year. Pure address hosting sits at the bottom; add same-day scanned delivery, a client portal, and deadline alerts and you are defensibly at the top of the range. Whatever you charge, know your handling cost per letter — that is what decides whether the service makes money.
Put a real service agreement in place
Scope (which companies, which mail), delivery method and timescales, retention and destruction, fees and review, what happens on non-payment or client exit, and your right to resign the address. Have it reviewed professionally. A one-line addition to an engagement letter is how firms end up processing post for companies they no longer act for.
Do CDD on every company you host
TCSP work means customer due diligence on each company using your address: identify the beneficial owners, understand the business, and keep the records your supervisor expects. Re-check the register periodically — companies you never agreed to host have a habit of appearing at professional addresses.
Build the post workflow before the volume arrives
At ten clients, opening and forwarding letters by hand is a chore. At a hundred, it is a part-time job with penalty-notice risk attached. Decide up front how post is opened, scanned, matched to the client, delivered, and evidenced — the audit trail matters when your supervisor asks how client mail is controlled.
This guide is general information, not legal or regulatory advice — confirm the specifics with your supervisory body.
THE DECIDING FACTOR
The service is priced flat. The work isn't.
Every economics question about this service reduces to one number: what a letter costs you to handle. Open, read, identify the client, scan, rename, email, file — five minutes a letter at typical staff rates is £1.25 or more per item, before anything goes wrong.
Two free tools give you the answer for your own firm: the cost calculator shows what your volume costs at your rates, and the address lookup shows every company currently registered at your office — including any you didn't know about.
If the number is uncomfortable, that is what registered office management software exists for: the scanning, matching, delivery, and audit trail run as one batch job instead of a morning of admin.
Common questions
Can any accountancy firm offer registered office services?
Yes, provided the firm has AML supervision covering trust or company service provider activity and its address meets the appropriate-address requirements. Most established practices already satisfy both — the common gap is process, not permission.
How much should I charge for a registered office service?
Address-only services trade at roughly £100–£150 per company per year. Firms that scan and forward post the same day, offer a portal, and flag deadlines credibly charge £200–£300+. The right price depends on your handling cost per letter — calculate it before setting the fee.
Do I have to open and read my clients' post?
Statutory mail addressed to the company at your address needs to reach the client reliably — that is the point of the service. Most firms open and scan everything except items marked private, and set that expectation in the service agreement.
What are the AML obligations?
Providing a registered office is TCSP activity under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017: you need supervision for it, customer due diligence on each hosted company, and records that show both. Check the specifics with your supervisory body.
How do firms handle the post volume?
Manually at first — then it stops scaling. Software like ComplyPost lets the firm scan the whole day's post as one batch: it splits the scan into letters, matches each to the right client company, flags deadlines, delivers by email or portal, and keeps the audit trail automatically.
How do I know which companies are using my address?
Search your address on Companies House — or use the free ComplyPost address lookup, which shows every active and dissolved company registered at any UK address and lets you export the list.
Launch the service with the workflow already solved.
Free plan includes 100 pages a month — enough to run a pilot with your first registered office clients.
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