When planning on setting up your company, it's important to know the difference between Registered Office Address and Business Address. When registering, you will need to provide a Registered Office Address, a Business Address (aka Trading Address) and the address where Central Management and Control takes place. If you have suitable premises in Ireland, the Registered Office Adress may be the same as your Business Address, but sometimes you may need, or wish, to use an alternative address.
Business Address
A business address is the place where the real activity of the company is carried out, the place where the day to day operations of the company are carried out.
This is done via human, physical and technical resources necessary to run the business; so if there are none of these at your business address it is going to be difficult to prove the business is located at that address.
The business address is not where your auditors office is located, even if the accounting is done there and this would not be acceptable by Irish government bodies.
It is important to have a real business address in Ireland for the purposes of applying for Tax Registration and especially important that you have resources at that address to run the business if you are applying for an Irish VAT number.
We've helped some clients with the arrangement of a virtual office address for use until the company has premises arranged.
Location of Central Management and Control
This is the place where decisions are made regarding the company. In some cases this may be a location outside of Ireland, but in order to avail of the 12.5% corporation tax rate, management and control of the company must take place in this country.
See more in our article, 12.5% Irish Corporation Tax Rate - or is it 25%?
Registered Office Address
A Registered Office Address is a legal requirement when incorporating a limited company in Ireland. It is an address at which legal notices can be delivered by government & other interested bodies.
You may use your Business Address, or another you have in Ireland, as your Registered Office Address; but often this address is offered as a service by the company auditors so that they can keep abreast of correspondence from the Companies Registration Office.
The Registered Office Address is usually where a company's register, seal and statutory documents are held. If this is not the case, notification of the location of these documents must be made to the Companies Registration Office.
Provision of a Registered Office Address is a service that we can provide for our clients. It includes forwarding of correspondence received via scan/email or by post.
Our Offshore Limited Company Packages includes the provision of a Registered Office Address. This service can be added to our other Limited Company Packages.
