The upcoming address protection law allows New Zealand company directors to hide their residential addresses from public view on the Companies Register starting 18 November 2026. Under the Companies (Address Information) Amendment Act 2025 enacted by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), directors will have the right to substitute their home address with an “alternative address” to mitigate privacy and safety risks.
Here is what these structural changes mean for you in practical terms.
Who is Eligible?
- Current Directors: You can request to remove your currently visible home address from the public register.
- Prospective Directors: You can apply for this protection before your company is official, keeping your home address private from day one.
- Co-habiting Shareholders: If you live with a shareholder, the safety protection can apply to them as well.
- Note: This framework does not protect historic or past directorship records.
What Counts as a Valid “Alternative Address”?
The alternative address must be a legitimate physical space in New Zealand where formal legal documents can be physically served to you.
- Allowed: The registered premises of an accountant, a solicitor, or another authorised professional (fully identified by floor/office).
- Banned: PO Boxes, postal centres, document exchanges, or your own company’s general address for service.
The Application Steps
MBIE is launching an online portal to manage applications directly through the Companies Office. To swap your address, you must:
- Submit a Statutory Declaration: You must formally state that public exposure of your address is likely to cause physical or mental harm to you or your family.
- Witness the Signing: The document must be physically signed before a solicitor or a Justice of the Peace.
- No Intrusive Evidence Required: You do not need to include deep personal details or explicit evidence of past trauma or threats in this form.
- Pay the Fee: A minor administrative fee may apply once the system launches.
Critical Reality Checks
- Government Records: You are not hiding your address from the government. The New Zealand Companies Office Registrar will still hold your residential information privately on file.
- The Internet Remembers: The law forces the Registrar to redact your details and scrub public documents on the registry. However, it cannot delete data that third-party scrapers, directories, or private databases have already pulled from the internet in past years.
Further administrative templates and explicit guidelines will be released directly on the Institute of Directors NZ (IoD) portal closer to the November launch date.
