Addresses for an ABN

Three fields, three different rules

When you check or update your ABN record in ABR online services, the address fields are these:

Business address

The physical location of the business or organisation: a street address. The ABR says your main business address should not be a post office box or a tax or BAS agent’s address.

Postal address

Where you want the ABR to send its communication. It could be your tax or BAS agent’s address, a post office box or your main business address.

Additional location

Any other places the business operates from. These should also be street addresses of the business.

The ABR asks ABN holders to check the business location it holds, even if the address hasn’t changed since registration. Its stated reasons include keeping government agencies’ information current, which emergency services and other agencies can use to contact businesses or help in an emergency.

What ABN Lookup shows, and what it keeps

Once an ABN is granted, its details go on the register as either public information, searchable on ABN Lookup, or non-public information, available to the ABN holder, their registered tax agent and, for some details, eligible government agencies. The address-related lines fall on both sides:

When you first apply

The ABN application asks for business contact details, including an address, a postal address, an email address and a phone number. It also asks for business locations: the physical locations of all premises the enterprise operates, unless disclosing them would risk the safety of individuals. The ABR’s example is a women’s refuge.

The email address has rules of its own: between 5 and 200 characters, no spaces, and not starting with “support@”, “Sales@” or “info@”.

Keeping it current

Keeping ABN details up to date is the holder’s responsibility, and changes must be made within 28 days of becoming aware of them.

• Online. The fastest way is ABR online services, logging in with Digital ID and the Relationship Authorisation Manager. Changes made online take effect immediately.
• Through a tax professional, who can update the details for you.
• By form, completed and mailed, if you can’t use the online service.

If publishing a detail would put someone at risk

You can ask the ABR not to disclose certain details if publishing them may risk your safety or the safety of anyone associated with the business, or if exceptional circumstances support the request. If the request succeeds, the legal and historical name, trading name, business name, entity type and postcode are not made public. Details of specific business premises can also be withheld where disclosure would risk someone’s safety.

Evidence the ABR mentions includes a statutory declaration, court orders, a police report, a letter from the Australian Electoral Commission showing silent elector status, or a phone bill showing a silent number. In most cases it writes with the outcome within 20 business days.

Three registers, updated separately

The ABR is one of three places a business’s address can sit. business.gov.au notes that when a business address changes you may need to tell the ATO, ASIC and the ABR. The registers don’t all copy each other: ASIC notes that an update on the business names register doesn’t carry across to the companies register. The ABR, for its part, says name changes made by the ATO and ASIC update the ABR automatically, which is a rule about names, not addresses.

For the other two registers, see a company’s registered office and principal place of business and business names and their addresses.