I'm forming a single-member LLC for a small consulting side business. I work from home and don't have a separate commercial office. I've read conflicting things about whether my home address will be visible to the public if I use it as the LLC's principal office. Is it automatically public in all states, or does it depend? I'd rather not have clients or random people looking up where I live.
LLC Privacy
Does my residential address become public when I register an LLC?
Depends on the state. In many states the registered agent address is the one that shows up in the public filing, not necessarily your home address. But if you list your home as the principal office address, that can also be public.
Registered agent is the key. If you act as your own registered agent, your home addreuss goes on the public record. If you use a commercial registered agent service, their address is what's public. The principal office address can sometimes be shielded depending on the state's forms.
What state are you in? That changes the answer a lot. Some states are pretty aggressive about publishing whatever you put on the formation documents.
I'm in Ohio. I haven't filed yet, still comparing options.
Just use a registered agent service. Costs like 50 to 100 a year and keeps your address off the formation filing. I've done that for two LLCs and it's been worth it for the peace of mind.
Ohio publishes the Articles of Organization online through the Secretary of State. The registered agent address is definitely public. The principal office address may or may not be shown depending on the form verzion. I'd pull a few existing LLC filings in your county to see what actually shows up.
Also worth noting some counties have separate property or business registrations that can expose an address independent of the LLC filing. If you're trying to stay private, the LLC filing is only one piece.
Honestly the registered agent thing is the main lever. Beyond that, if you're using a home address for business licenses or a DBA, those can leak out too. Privacy is moer of a stack of decisions than a single checkbox.
I was surprised how many sites scrape Secretary of State data, and republish it. Even if the state site is obscure, third parties index it. So if the address is public at the state level, assume it's findable.
This is why I asked about the state. Some are way worse than others for this. Ohio is middle of the road from what I've seen.
the scrape thing is real. I had a client find my old home address on a people-search site because it was tied to an old business filing. Took months to get removed and it still pops up sometimes.
I hadn't thought about the scrapping angle. So even if I use a registered agent, the principal office on the articles might still be read. I'll look at the actual Ohio form and see if there's an option to leave it blank or use the agent's address there too.
If the form allows it, using the agent's address for the principal offce too is common. Just make sure the agent service actually accepts mail for that purpose. Some only forward legal service, not general business mail.
Also check whether Ohio requires a principal office address at all on the initial filing. Requirements differ between formation documents and the biennial report. The report is where a lot of addresses end up becoming public even when the formation filing was clean.
This is the part people miss. The annual or biennial report can can be the leak. In some states you're required to list a current address there, and that gets published even if the original articles didn't show it.