Can I Use a Virtual Office Address to Register My Company with ASIC?
Short answer: yes, you can. When you register a company with ASIC, you need to provide a registered office address, and it cannot be a PO Box. It needs to be a physical street address in Australia where documents can be delivered during business hours. A virtual office membership gives you exactly that. Here is how it works, what it costs and a few things worth checking before you sign up with any provider.
Why founders use a virtual office as their registered address
If you run your business from home, listing your home address with ASIC means it becomes public record. Anyone can look it up. For a lot of sole traders and new company directors, that alone is reason enough to use a professional address instead. Beyond privacy, there are practical upsides. A CBD address looks more established on your website and invoices. And your mail gets handled by actual humans during business hours, so you never miss a director penalty notice because you were at a client site.
Mache Coworking’s reception area where we receive deliveries, members and their guests.
What ASIC actually requires
Your registered office must be a physical address in Australia. If the company does not occupy the premises, you need the written consent of whoever does. That is the piece a proper virtual office provider handles for you. When you sign up, the provider consents to your company using the address as its registered office, and that consent is what keeps you compliant.
One thing to be clear on: the registered office is where legal documents and ASIC correspondence get served. It is not necessarily your principal place of business. You can list both, and they can be different addresses.
What it costs
At Mâché (mash-aye), our Virtual Services membership starts at $40 per month, ex GST. That includes a professional address at 451 Pulteney Street in the Adelaide CBD, mail handling, and on-demand access to the space when you need a desk or a meeting room. Compare that to the cheapest serviced office in the CBD and the maths is not close. For most early-stage businesses, a virtual office covers the address and mail problem for less than the cost of a few coffees a week.
What to check before you sign up, with any provider
A few honest questions worth asking, including of us:
Is it a real, staffed address? ASIC requires the address to be attended during business hours. A mailbox service in a shopfront does not meet that bar. A coworking space with a team on site does.
What happens to your ASIC listing if you cancel? This one matters. If you cancel your membership, you are required to update your registered office with ASIC. At Mâché we ask for 30 days notice and confirmation that the address has been removed from your ASIC registration before the membership ends. It protects you from compliance issues and it protects the address for the members still using it.
Can you actually use the space? The best virtual office memberships are a foot in the door of a real community, not just a mail slot. Ours includes on-demand access, so when you land a client meeting, you have somewhere professional to hold it.
Setting it up takes about a day
Sign up, receive your address confirmation, then lodge it with ASIC through your registered agent or directly via ASIC Connect. If you are registering a brand new company, you can list the address from day one.
If you want to see the building your business address would live in, come by for a tour. There is always coffee on, and there is almost always a dog somewhere in the building.
Book a tour or set up your virtual office today.
Prices exclude GST. This article is general information, not legal advice. For specifics on your registration, talk to your accountant or registered agent.
Thanks for reading. I’m Dans the founder of Mâché (mash-aye), a coworking community I’ve built since 2016. Say hi on LinkedIn.
