Three phrases turn up on forms, on invoices and in conversations with accountants, and a great many people running small businesses use all three to mean the place they work. They do not mean the same thing, and the difference decides which one a stranger can eventually read.
For the broader context behind this business guide, read How We Verify A Physical Business Without Publishing Anyone's Home Address.
That is the whole reason this entry exists. Not to explain paperwork, but to explain visibility.
Scope. This entry does not state what any law or registry requires of anybody, anywhere. That is a standing editorial boundary rather than an omission: the answer turns on your jurisdiction and on how your business is constituted, we are not qualified to give it in any jurisdiction, and a confident general answer is the specific thing that causes harm here. What the entry does instead is describe what each term does — who can see the address, and by what route it becomes readable — and point you at the register or authority your business form is recorded with, and at somebody qualified where you are.
What this is, and who it is for
For an operator who has filled in a form, ticked a box, and is now uneasy about where that information went. Particularly for anybody working from the place they live, which is the case where getting this wrong causes real harm.
A necessary caveat first, and it constrains everything below.
These are not universal terms. They are phrases in common use, and whether any of them is a defined term of art, what it is called, what it obliges, and what becomes publicly readable as a result all vary by jurisdiction. This entry defines them by what they do — who can see the address and by what route it becomes public — because that part is describable. It does not define them by law, because that would require a primary source per jurisdiction, and asserting one we have not opened is the exact failure this entry exists to avoid.
Defining them by visibility is a deliberate choice rather than a substitute for something better. A phrase of this kind only acquires a fixed meaning inside a particular regime, and which regime you are in is decided by two facts about your own situation: where the business is constituted, and what it is constituted as. Without both of those settled, "registered address" and "service address" name a shape rather than a thing — a field on somebody else's record, readable or not according to that record-keeper's rules rather than according to the phrase.
So the sequence that helps a reader is the reverse of the one most articles imply. Establish which body, if any, holds a record of your business. Establish which fields on that record it makes readable, and to whom. Only then do the terms on this page attach to anything definite in your case — and at that point the body's own published material is a better source than any general article, this one included.
Trading address
What it usually refers to. The place the business actually operates from. The shop, the workshop, the studio, the unit, the kitchen, the room.
Who can see it. Anybody, generally, and often by design. It is the address on the sign, on the card, on the invoice, in the listing, on the delivery label. Its purpose is to be found.
How it becomes public. Usually because the operator publishes it, or because a customer, supplier or platform repeats it. Once repeated it is copied, and copies do not update when the original does.
The thing people miss. It is public in practice long before it is public in any formal sense. A single leaflet, one listing description, one invoice, and the address is in circulation.
Registered address
What it usually refers to. An address recorded with some official body as the formal address of a business entity. Whether such a thing exists at all depends on how the business is constituted and where. Some business forms are recorded with an official body and some are not recorded anywhere, and where nothing holds a record, the term has nothing to attach to.
Who can see it. This is the important part, and the honest answer is that it depends. In some jurisdictions, records of this kind are searchable by anybody at no cost. In others, access is limited or fee-bearing. Which of those you are in is a property of the specific register your business form sits in, and that register is the only place the answer is authoritative.
How it becomes public. Through a register maintained by somebody other than the operator. That is the material difference from a trading address: the operator did not publish it and generally cannot unpublish it.
The thing people miss. It is frequently supplied once, years ago, on a form, by somebody who was thinking about the form rather than about publication. It is also the address most likely to still be a previous home.
Service address
What it usually refers to. An address given as the place formal correspondence for a particular person or role should be sent. It is about where post goes, not about where work happens.
Who can see it. Depends entirely on the regime it sits in, and on whether that regime treats it as a public field. That question has one answer per regime, and the body holding the record is where it is settled. It is sometimes described as the more private of the options, and whether that description holds anywhere in particular is exactly the sort of claim we are not going to assert.
How it becomes public. By the same route as a registered address, where it becomes public at all: through somebody else's register rather than through anything the operator publishes.
The thing people miss. The word "service" suggests something technical and low-stakes. The field it lands in may be no less readable than any other.
Where each one becomes visible, and to whom
The table below is about routes, not law. Every cell that mentions a register describes a dependency on that register's own rules, which differ from one to the next and which we do not state.
| Who can see it | By what route | Can the operator take it back? | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trading address | Generally anybody | Published by the operator, then copied by others | The original, usually. The copies, rarely. |
| Registered address | Depends on the register holding it | A register held by somebody else | Depends on that register's rules, which the operator did not set |
| Service address | Depends on the register holding it | A register held by somebody else | Depends on that register's rules, which the operator did not set |
The pattern worth taking from it: the addresses you publish yourself are the ones you can most easily change, and the ones you supplied to somebody else are the ones you can least easily retrieve. That is the reverse of how most people assume it works.
The home-business overlap, and why it catches people out
This is the case that causes actual harm, and it is extremely common.
An enormous number of small businesses are run from the place somebody lives. When that is true, one address can be all three at once. The same set of rooms is the trading address, the registered address and the service address, and it is also where a family sleeps.
Two things follow, and they surprise people.
A decision made in one context can surface in another. An address given on a form is not obviously an act of publication at the time. It can become one later, through a route the person filling in the form was not thinking about.
The exposure outlives the reason for it. The business is sold, the trade changes, a relationship ends, a situation becomes difficult. The address does not know any of that happened. Nothing about the original decision anticipated the circumstances that make it matter.
We are not going to tell you what to do about that. Which address to register, how to arrange your business, or whether to use any kind of intermediary are decisions with legal and financial consequences, and this site does not advise on them and does not recommend any address or forwarding service. Anyone would be better served by somebody qualified who knows their jurisdiction.
What we will say is the narrow useful thing: the three terms are not interchangeable, and knowing which one you supplied where is worth an hour of your time.
Where to check what applies to you
- The register or authority your business form is recorded with, if there is one. That is the primary source for what it makes readable.
- Whatever confirmation you were given when you registered. It usually says more than people remember.
- A professional in your own jurisdiction, for anything with a consequence attached.
- Not this page, and not any general article, including a confident one. General articles about this subject are frequently written about one country and read in another, which is the specific failure mode this entry is trying to avoid.
Which one we use, and which we never publish
Straightforwardly:
- We publish a trading address only where the public is invited to attend it. A shop, a counter, a studio open to visitors.
- We never publish a residential address. Including where a home is the registered address. Including where it is the trading address. Including where it has already been published elsewhere. Including where the operator asks.
- We do not publish registered or service addresses at all. They are not what a customer needs, and they are the addresses most likely to be somebody's home.
- Where a business has no attendable location, the entry says so. It trades by appointment, or online, or at announced markets, or the location is not published. The field is null and the entry says the field is null.
The full list of what we will never publish, with the harm each rule prevents, is at what we will never publish. The equivalent question about your own site is at what never goes on a contact page and what your site has to say about who you are. The wider physical-business material is collected at real places, checked, and what we do with anything we hold is at our privacy policy.
In Plain English
Three terms, one question each: who can see it, and how did it get there?
- Trading address — where you work. Public because you published it, and copied by others afterwards.
- Registered address — recorded with an official body, where such a body applies. Public through somebody else's register, if it is public at all.
- Service address — where formal post goes. Same route, same uncertainty.
- The terms are not universal and the rules differ by jurisdiction. Every registry point on this page depends on the specific register your business form sits in, which is where it can be answered and where this page will not go.
- The addresses you publish yourself are the easiest to change. The ones you supplied to somebody else are the hardest to retrieve.
- If you work from home, all three can be the same address, and a decision made on a form years ago can surface long afterwards.
- We publish an attendable trading address and nothing else. Never a residential address, under any condition.
Browse the glossary → /glossary/