Can I move my company from Scotland to England?

If you have hopes of relocating and wish to move your company from Scotland to England, you’ll be happy to know that you can establish your business and trading operations anywhere you like. Regardless of where your company is registered, there is nothing to prevent you from moving your business to a new location or setting up additional branches in various places throughout the UK or overseas.

However, please be aware that you cannot change your company’s country of incorporation. If it’s registered in Scotland, it will always be a Scottish company. In practice, this simply means that your registered office must always be situated in Scotland and your company will remain under the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts.

Updating your company addresses when you move 

• Residential address: If you are a director, you must inform Companies House of your new ‘usual residential address’. This information will not be placed on public record unless you use your home as your service address.

• Service address: As a director, secretary, or person with significant control (PSC) of the company, you may want to register a new service address in England, but it’s not a legal requirement. If you already have a professional service address, you can continue to receive your government mail there and get it forwarded to your new home address. It’s entirely up to you. If you do change your service address, you must tell Companies House as soon as possible.

• Registered office: The registered office of your company can remain the same or you can change it to another one in Scotland. That’s the extent of it. If you use a professional registered office service, you can continue to use it and have your official government mail forwarded to your new address in England.

• Business address: If you have an existing business address in Scotland that is used by clients, suppliers, investors and other third parties, remember to tell them if you change it. Alternatively, you could keep your Scottish business address for existing contacts and then set up an English one for new clients and contacts. Again, it is simply a matter of preference but it could get confusing if you have multiple business addresses for a small company.

See also: How to close a company

Further considerations if you move your company from Scotland to England

Depending on the type of business you have and your long-term plans, you may have to consider whether the operational activities of your company will also move to England and whether your suppliers will change as a result. If this is a possibility, you should refer to your existing contracts and agreements to see where you stand in this respect.

On the other hand, you may not need or want to alter your existing trading location and business arrangements – your operations may be able to remain exactly the same, with the only difference being your place of residence.

Rapid Formations services

Should you require changing any of your company’s details, our Online Admin Portal can be used free of charge – simply sign in or create a new account to update your company details online and report changes to Companies House. We also provide a range of company addresses in London and Glasgow, including a Registered Office, a Service Address, and a Business Address, all of which include mail forwarding.