Formation agent addresses: why one London street holds 74,992 companies

21 October 2026 · Figures as of 21/10/2026

Every UK company must have a registered office: an address where official post can be delivered. It doesn't have to be where the business trades, and for a large share of companies it isn't.

One in six

In the Companies House snapshot we loaded for 01/09/2026, 941,532 of 5,689,367 live companies (16.5%) were registered at an address we class as a formation agent's: an address shared by at least 250 companies. Agents offer the address as a service, often so that owners don't have to put their home address on the public register.

The busiest addresses

From our formation factories table on 21/10/2026:

1. 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ: 74,992 companies
2. 128 City Road, London EC1V 2NX: 42,398
3. 20 Wenlock Road, London N1 7GU: 20,433
4. 124 City Road, London EC1V 2NX: 17,186
5. 3rd Floor, 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE: 16,753

The fifty busiest addresses alone hold 379,731 companies, about 40% of all agent-registered companies.

Why it matters

A company "registered in" Covent Garden may trade from anywhere in the UK, or online only. So when you check a company, treat the registered office as a legal address, not a location. That's also why our live map never plots agent-registered companies at the agent's address: they'd swamp a handful of London postcodes and tell you nothing about where business is actually happening. They're counted separately instead.

GOV.UK has the rules for what counts as a registered office address.