Dormant companies

Dormant company, live address: tidying up a company you don't use

A dormant company address on Companies House stays public for as long as the company exists, because the company keeps filing every year. You can move the registered office and your service address, or close the company with form DS01.

Updated 24 Oct 2026 · 5 min read · By Rayhaan Moughal, Sidekick Accounting

If you hold a dormant company, your address is probably still on the register. A company that does nothing still has a registered office, still has directors with a service address, and still files a confirmation statement and accounts each year.

You have two routes. Keep the company and make it private, or close it. Which one fits depends on whether the company has a future, and we'll compare them honestly below.

What a dormant company still files every year

GOV.UK is clear that a dormant company must still file its confirmation statement and annual accounts. Companies House treats a company as dormant if it had no "significant" transactions in the financial year. Filing fees, late filing penalties and the money paid for shares at incorporation don't count as significant.

Here's what each yearly filing is, using only what GOV.UK and Companies House say about them.

Yearly filing	What it is	Address angle
Confirmation statement (CS01)	Confirms the company's details are up to date, including SIC codes, shareholder information and capital	Confirms the register is correct, so a stale address gets re-confirmed
Dormant accounts	Simplified accounts for a small company that's dormant for Companies House	Filed against the company record, which carries the registered office
Officer details	Directors' service addresses sit on the company's officer list	Public for as long as the role is live

The point is that the company record keeps all of this on display, year after year. Nothing about being dormant switches the register off.

Dormant company registered office: who sees what

The registered office shows on the company's page, and your director service address shows against your name. For many one-person companies both are the same house.

Older filings can hold more. Incorporation forms and annual returns from earlier years often show a home address, and sometimes a signature or date of birth. Our guide on what you can remove from old filings shows how to find them.

Fictional example: Northgate Studio Ltd, a paused company, run from LS6

Year 1IncorporatedHome address given as the registered office and Alex Morgan's service address on the incorporation form.
Year 2Trading pausesAlex takes a job. The company stops trading but keeps the name.
Years 2 to 5Confirmation statement every yearSame address confirmed each time.
Years 2 to 5Dormant accounts every yearFiled against the same registered office.
Year 6Alex checks the registerFour years later, the home address is still the public address of a company nobody uses.

Do you still need the company?

Start with this, because the answer decides the route.

Keep it or close it?

Do you plan to trade or use the company in future?

Yes: Keep it dormant and make it private. Move the registered office and service address, then clean up old filings.

No: Closing is usually simpler. Go to the next question.

Are you only holding it for the name?

Yes: Keeping costs you a filing every year. Weigh that against how much the name matters to you.

No: Closing is likely cheaper in time.

Has the company traded or sold stock in the last 3 months?

Yes: It can't be struck off yet. GOV.UK says the company must not have traded in that window.

No: You can apply for strike-off with form DS01.

Route one: keep it dormant, but private

This route keeps the company alive and takes your home off the live record.

Change the registered office. File form AD01 with a new address. A live company's current registered office can't be removed with SR01, so it has to move first. Our guide to a registered office address service covers the options.
Change your service address. Update each director's service address with Companies House, so the home address stops being the public contact address.
Remove the home address from old filings. Once the live record is clean, SR01 handles the old documents. For a former registered office, list the original filing that set it, never the AD01.

We can set up a registered office and service address for you as part of your application, and it sits alongside our home address removal service. The detail on the form is in our guides to the SR01 form and how to complete it.

Route two: close the company with DS01

Striking off ends the yearly filing. GOV.UK sets out the rules.

You can only strike off a company that hasn't traded or sold stock in the last 3 months, hasn't changed its name in that time, isn't threatened with liquidation and has no creditor agreements such as a CVA.
A majority of directors must sign form DS01, and the fee is £18.
The request is published as a notice in The Gazette. If nobody objects, the company is struck off once the two-month period in the notice has passed.
Remaining assets pass to the Crown, including future payments such as HMRC refunds, so close bank accounts and move domain names first.

Dissolution doesn't take your details off the register. The filings stay public, and the SR01 route is still how you remove them. Dissolved companies have a particular rule if your home was the registered office, which our post on removing an address from a dissolved company explains, including the 6-month wait.

Keep it dormant or close it: the honest comparison

Keep it dormant and private

Company and name stay yours
A confirmation statement and accounts every year
Registered office and service address changed
Old filings still need an SR01 clean-up
Easy to restart trading later

Close it with DS01

Filings stop for good
£18 fee, majority of directors sign
Gazette notice, then dissolution
Old filings stay public and need SR01
Restoring later means a restoration process

Closing is better when the company is finished. Keeping it is better when the name or the company has a real future, and cheaper if you'd only have to recreate it later.

Is your dormant company address on Companies House?

Before choosing, list what's on the register against your name, including companies you've forgotten. Our free scan reads filings back to 2003 and shows what it finds as postcode districts only, so you can see whether the clean-up is one document or twenty.

Questions

Does a dormant company still have to file at Companies House?

Yes. GOV.UK says a dormant company must still file its confirmation statement and annual accounts. If it's dormant for Companies House and qualifies as small, it can file dormant accounts instead of full ones, with no auditor's report.

Can I use my home as the registered office of a dormant company?

You can, but it's public for as long as it's the registered office, and a live company's current registered office can't be removed with form SR01. It has to be changed first. Dormant companies tend to keep the same address for years because nobody revisits it.

How much does it cost to strike off a dormant company?

GOV.UK gives the fee for form DS01 as £18. A majority of the directors must sign it, and the company can't pay by cheque from its own account. Check the current fee on GOV.UK before you apply.

Will striking off a company remove my address from Companies House?

No. The company's filings stay on the register after dissolution, and Companies House says dissolved company records are kept for 20 years (it's reviewing that). You'd still apply with form SR01 to remove your details from the old documents.

Do I have to tell Companies House that my company is dormant?

No notification is needed to start or stop being dormant. GOV.UK says that if you restart trading, your next set of non-dormant accounts will show it. HMRC is told separately for Corporation Tax.