Why have one

Small companies often use their home or an accountant’s address as the registered office, but keep their statutory books somewhere else: with a company secretarial provider, say, or at a business address. A SAIL lets the records live where they are actually looked after, while the registered office stays where post is received.

Which records it covers

The records a company may keep at its SAIL include2:

  • the register of members (shareholders);
  • directors’ service contracts and indemnities;
  • records of resolutions and meetings;
  • documents about the company buying back or redeeming its own shares;
  • the register of debenture holders; and
  • copies of documents creating charges.

Since 18 November 2025 companies no longer keep their own registers of directors, directors’ home addresses, secretaries or people with significant control: that information is held only at Companies House3. The register of members stays, at the registered office or the SAIL3.

Check your company’s dates and set a reminder

Search the Companies House register. Your company page shows its filing dates, what to file next and a reminder you can set.

The rules for the address

Regulation 3 of the Company Records Regulations sets three conditions1:

  1. The address is in the part of the UK where the company is registered: England and Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland.
  2. It is the same place for all the records kept there. A company can’t split its records between two alternative addresses.
  3. It has been notified to Companies House as the company’s alternative inspection location.

Setting up the SAIL doesn’t move anything by itself: it puts the address on the register. Telling Companies House which records are kept there is a separate notice, and the company has to report changes to where it keeps its records within 14 days4. Read where company registers are kept for that step.

Changing or removing it

A new address replaces the old one; there is only ever one SAIL. If you stop using a SAIL, the records go back to the registered office and Companies House is told about that move too.

Setting up the address

Fileyear’s inspection address filing checks that the address is in the right part of the UK and files form AD02 to set up or change your SAIL.