Last updated 6 September 2026.
A Hong Kong company must have a registered office in Hong Kong to which all communications and notices may be addressed. If the address changes, you have 15 days to tell the Companies Registry on Form NR1 — and putting the new address in your annual return does not count. Get either wrong and section 658 makes it an offence for the company and every responsible person: up to HK$50,000 each, plus HK$1,000 for every day it continues.
There is also a requirement most people have never heard of, which decides whether a cheap shared address is actually compliant. We come to it below.
What is the registered office for?
Section 658(1): a company must have a registered office in Hong Kong to which all communications and notices may be addressed.
That phrase is the whole purpose. The registered office is where the Companies Registry, the Inland Revenue Department, the courts and anyone suing you will send things, and where they are entitled to assume you received them. It is a service address in the legal sense, not a marketing address, and it appears on the public register.
It does not have to be where you work. A company can trade entirely from somewhere else, or from nowhere physical at all, and still keep its registered office at its secretary's premises — which is what most Hong Kong companies do.
Can it be a PO box?
No — and the reason is more interesting than a flat rule, because it comes from two requirements meeting.
Section 658(1) needs an address that communications and notices can actually be addressed to. Separately, Cap. 622B requires your company's name to be displayed at the registered office where visitors can see it. A numbered box in a mail room cannot satisfy a display requirement written for people walking in. So the constraint is not a standalone "no PO boxes" clause you can look up — it falls out of the display rule, which is the next section and the part worth reading properly.
Does your company name have to be on display?
Yes, and this catches people who have never set foot in their own registered office.
Cap. 622B regulation 3(1) and (2): a company must display continuously its registered name in legible characters at its registered office and at every business venue, positioned so that it may be easily seen by any visitor.
Continuously, legibly, and visible to a visitor. If you engaged a provider and have never checked whether your company's name appears anywhere at the address on the public register, that is worth a look. Regulation 3(4) exempts a company that has had no accounting transaction since incorporation — but that is a narrow carve-out for genuinely never-traded companies, not a general excuse.
How does that work at a shared address?
This is the part almost nobody covers, and it is the single most useful thing to know when comparing registered-office providers. The regulation anticipates exactly this situation and sets a measurable standard.
Cap. 622B regulation 3(3): where a location is the registered office or business venue of more than 6 companies, and a company displays its registered name through an electronic device, the name counts as displayed continuously if — (a) it is displayed for at least 15 continuous seconds at least once in every 4 minutes; or (b) it is capable of being displayed within 4 minutes after a request made through the device.
Read that as a specification, because it is one. Any serviced-office or company-secretarial address will be the registered office of far more than six companies, so the provider needs either a physical directory board carrying every name, or a screen meeting the 15-seconds-in-4-minutes rule, or a device that can produce your name on request within four minutes.
So the question to put to a prospective provider is not "do you provide a registered address?" It is: how is my company's name displayed at it, and does that meet regulation 3(3)? A provider who does not know what you are talking about is telling you something.
If you have never checked how your company's name appears at your own registered office, that is worth establishing before somebody else does — ours is a directory board at the Tin Hau office and you are welcome to come and look at it first.
How do you change the address?
Section 658(3): if the address of a company's registered office is changed, the company must deliver a notice of the change in the specified form to the Registrar for registration within 15 days after the change.
The specified form is Form NR1, Notice of Change of Address of Registered Office. Fifteen days, not fifteen business days, running from the change itself rather than from when you got round to the paperwork.
The trap: your annual return does not count
Your registered office address appears on the annual return, so it is a natural assumption that filing the return reports a change of address. The ordinance closes that assumption off in as many words.
Section 658(4): the inclusion in the annual return of a company of a statement as to the address of its registered office does not satisfy the obligation imposed by subsection (3).
Two filings, two deadlines, no overlap. Moving office and mentioning it on your next NAR1 is not compliance — it is one breach and one late notice. If the annual return itself is the thing you are worried about, that is a separate deadline with its own escalating fees.
Where must your statutory registers be kept?
Related but distinct, and it usually moves when the office does. Section 648(3) requires the register of company secretaries to be kept at the registered office or a prescribed place, and the same pattern applies to the other statutory registers. If the place where they are kept changes, section 648(4) and (5) require notice on Form NR2, Notice of Location of Registers and Company Records, within 15 days.
Section 648(6) spares you that filing if the registers have always been kept at the registered office and stay there — which is the usual arrangement, and the reason most companies never file an NR2 at all.
What happens if you get it wrong?
Section 658(5): if a company contravenes subsection (1) or (3), the company and every responsible person of the company commit an offence, and each is liable to a fine at level 5 — HK$50,000 under Schedule 8 to the Criminal Procedure Ordinance (Cap. 221) — plus a further fine of HK$1,000 for each day the offence continues.
As with the other filing duties, "every responsible person" reaches the directors personally, and the daily element means the exposure grows with how long the register stays wrong rather than with how serious the move was.
Is a virtual office the same as a registered office?
Not necessarily, and the words are used loosely enough to be worth pinning down.
A registered office is the statutory address under section 658 — the one on the public register, the one that has to carry your name on display, the one the Registry writes to. A virtual office is a commercial package that usually includes a registered office address, but may also bundle mail handling, scanning, a phone number or meeting-room access.
The practical point: a virtual office product is only doing the statutory job if the address is genuinely fit to be your registered office — a real Hong Kong location, mail actually reaching you, and your name displayed to regulation 3 standards. Plenty of cheap packages fail that last test without ever mentioning it.
What to ask a registered-office provider
- How is my company name displayed at the address? Board, screen, or on request — and does it meet regulation 3(3)?
- What happens to mail? Opened and scanned, forwarded, or held for collection — and how fast for anything from the Registry, the IRD or a court.
- Will my registers be kept there, and does that need an NR2?
- Who files the NR1 if I move, and is it included?
- What is your TCSP licence number? Providing this as a business is licensed activity — check it on the Registry's public register.
Need a registered office that meets the display rule?
818hi.com and laulega.com are both operated by LAULEGA LIMITED, a Hong Kong licensed trust or company service provider. Our Tin Hau address carries client company names on display, mail is scanned to your portal, and the NR1 is filed for you when you move.
See the registered address serviceFrequently asked questions
Does a Hong Kong company need a registered office?
Yes — section 658(1) requires one in Hong Kong, to which all communications and notices may be addressed.
How long do I have to report a change of address?
Fifteen days, on Form NR1 (Notice of Change of Address of Registered Office), under section 658(3).
Does the annual return count as notifying a change?
No. Section 658(4) says expressly that stating the address in the annual return does not satisfy the duty to file a notice of change.
Can it be a PO box?
No. Section 658(1) needs an address communications can be sent to, and Cap. 622B regulation 3 requires your name displayed at the office where a visitor can see it — which a mail box cannot do.
Must my company name be displayed there?
Yes — continuously, in legible characters, positioned so any visitor can easily see it (Cap. 622B reg. 3(1) and (2)). Reg. 3(4) exempts a company with no accounting transaction since incorporation.
How does display work at a shared address?
Reg. 3(3): where more than 6 companies share the location and the name is shown on an electronic device, it must appear for at least 15 continuous seconds at least once every 4 minutes, or be displayable within 4 minutes of a request.
Statutory references are to the Companies Ordinance (Cap. 622), the Companies (Disclosure of Company Name and Liability Status) Regulation (Cap. 622B) and the Criminal Procedure Ordinance (Cap. 221) as in force at the date above; form titles are the Companies Registry's specified forms. Reviewed by Di Ma, responsible officer of LAULEGA LIMITED, a Hong Kong licensed trust or company service provider (TCSP licence TC000573). General information about Hong Kong law, not advice on your particular company — check the current position before you rely on it.