Registered Office

Section 50 of the Companies Act 2014 states that every company is required by law to maintain a registered office in the state.

The registered office of a company is that to which CRO correspondence and all formal legal notices addressed to the company will be sent. The registered office can be anywhere in the State.

Failure to maintain a registered office in the State is a Category Four Offence, as detailed in Section 871 of the Companies Act 2014.

Physical Location
The address must be a physical location, not just a post office box number, because people have the right to visit the company’s registered office to inspect certain registers and documents and to deliver documents by hand. A letter addressed to the company at its registered office address must be capable of being delivered by An Post.

Registered Office Agent (ROA)
It is possible to have the registered office placed in the care of an authorised agent. The authorised agents information must be detailed in a submission of a Form B2, where the address of the office is being changed, as detailed in Section 50 of the Companies Act 2014.

Updating the Registered Office
It is most important that a company keeps the CRO informed of the location of its registered office, as formal communications are sent to that address.

A company notifies its change of registered office by filing a completed Form B2 on CORE. The change becomes legally effective only when the CRO has registered the form. It is a Category Four Offence not to file a Form B2 where one is required.

Failure to update the company’s registered office could also result in the company not receiving warning of impending strike-off/other legal notices. As a result a company could be struck off and dissolved without it knowing.

Please note: As detailed in Section 51 of the Companies Act 2014, it should be noted that any document left at or sent by post to the place recorded at the CRO as the situation of the registered office of a company is deemed by law to have been left at or sent by post to the registered office of the company, notwithstanding that the situation of its registered office may have changed.