Yes. Nothing in Malaysia's Companies Act 2016 forbids registering a home as a Sdn Bhd registered office. The Act attaches duties to it: section 46 requires it to be “open and accessible to the public during ordinary business hours”, section 47 keeps your statutory records there unless the Registrar is told of another place, section 30 requires your company's name on display, and section 601 lets anyone inspect it.
Key takeaways
- Section 46(1) requires an office “in Malaysia to which all communications and notices may be addressed”. It says nothing about the type of building.
- Section 46(2) requires it to be “open and accessible to the public during ordinary business hours”. The Act does not say what that means for a private dwelling.
- Section 30(1) requires the company's registered name and registration number on display at the registered office. On a home, that means on the home.
- The address is public: SSM sells a Particulars of Registered Address report covering every change since 31 January 2017.
- Move house and section 46(3) gives you fourteen days to notify the Registrar; contravening section 46 carries a fine of up to RM50,000.
On this page10
Does the Companies Act 2016 allow a home address as a registered office in Malaysia?
There is no prohibition to get past. The proposed address of the registered office is one of the particulars lodged under section 14 at incorporation, and SSM's guidance on incorporation particulars asks only that it be complete: “The full particular of address must indicate with a no. unit or lot, level or floor, name of the building, name of road, city, postcode & state.”
So the question is never permission. It is whether a house can carry the duties the Act attaches to the address, which are identical for a Sdn Bhd run from a spare room and one run from an office tower. They sit beside the rest of a new company's obligations in our guide to what to do after incorporating a Sdn Bhd.
If you would rather not put your house on the register, PT Corporate Services provides a registered office in Kota Damansara.
What does a registered office in Malaysia have to be able to do?
Five things, and the Companies Act 2016 sets all five: take delivery of communications, stand open to the public in ordinary business hours, hold the statutory documents, allow inspection, and carry the company's name on display. A home address fails none of them automatically, which is why the question is practical rather than legal.
| What the Act requires | What it means for a home address |
|---|---|
| All communications and notices may be addressed there — s.46(1) | The Act asks for an address SSM notices and member communications can be sent to, not for an office. |
| Open and accessible to the public during ordinary business hours — s.46(2) | The Act does not define the hours, or say what being open and accessible means for a dwelling. |
| Registered name and registration number on display — s.30(1)(a) | The company's name and number go on display at the house, not only on its letterhead. |
| Statutory documents kept there — s.47(1) | Registers, members' minutes and accounting records sit at the house unless the Registrar is notified of another place; Board minutes cannot move. |
| Available for inspection, with proper facilities — s.48(1), (2) | A person entitled to inspect gets somewhere at the address to read the records, and may take copies. |
What has to be kept at the registered office, and can you keep it somewhere else?
Section 47(1) lists eleven categories, among them the notice of registration, the constitution, all registers and records required under the Act, members' and Board minutes, the financial statements and the accounting records required under section 245. Most of that list may be kept somewhere else — but only if notice to that effect has been given to the Registrar.
One category may not move. In the gazetted text, section 47(2) excludes minutes of all meetings and resolutions of the Board and its committees, so those stay at the address on the register. SSM's updated text as at 1 August 2022, which says on its face that it is not an authentic text, prints that exclusion against members' minutes instead — keeping both sets at the registered office satisfies either reading. Section 47(4) prices a contravention at up to RM10,000, plus up to RM500 for every day it continues.
Inspection is easy to overlook. Section 48(2) requires the company to “provide proper facilities to enable the documents and records to be inspected”, and section 48(3) lets the person inspecting take copies. At a house, that means admitting an entitled person — a member, for example — to read the company's records.
Who can look your home address up once it is on the register?
Anyone. Section 601(2) of the Companies Act 2016 says any person may, on payment of the prescribed fee, inspect any document filed or lodged with the Registrar. SSM also sells the address as a product in its own right: Particulars of Registered Address returns a company's most recent registered address together with every change to it since 31 January 2017.
That report and the company profile, which carries the registered address, business address and nature of business, are sold through SSM's service-provider portals. Register your house and you disclose where you live today, and any later change stays retrievable back to 31 January 2017. For some directors that is a shrug; for a director whose business attracts angry counterparties it is the whole decision.
Can I keep my home as the business address and register the company elsewhere?
Yes. The Companies Act 2016 attaches the registered-office duties to the registered office; section 30 separately requires the company's name and number wherever it carries on business or keeps its books. SSM's company profile records the registered address and the business address as separate items, and a Sdn Bhd can work out of a house while its registered office sits at its company secretary's address.
Will your building or your landlord allow it?
Whether your building or your landlord allows a registered office is a separate question from company law, and it is the one that catches people out. The Companies Act 2016 does not override a tenancy agreement or a strata scheme's by-laws. If you rent, check whether your tenancy permits business use. If you live in a strata parcel, read your own scheme's by-laws.
The Malaysian Court of Appeal has looked at business use of residential strata parcels in Innab Salil & Ors v Verve Suites Mont Kiara Management Corporation [2020] 3 CLJ 480. Allen & Gledhill's summary reports that the court, reading section 70(2) of the Strata Management Act 2013 with regulations 5 and 28 of its 2015 regulations, held that management corporations may make additional by-laws by special resolution, and that using residential units as business enterprises such as short-term rentals would defeat the spirit and purpose of that Act. The case concerned short-term letting, but it shows that a management corporation can set by-laws on how parcels are used.
Local-authority rules on running a business from a house are a further check this article does not cover.
What happens when you move house?
Section 46(3) requires the Registrar to be notified of any change in the address of the registered office within fourteen days of the change, and section 47(3) applies the same fourteen days to a change in the address of any other place where the company's documents are kept.
Fourteen days is short in the middle of a move, so a home registered office adds a compliance deadline that depends on your tenancy and a change to notify to the Registrar. Our guide to SSM's Corporate Registry System covers the registry itself.
When is your company secretary's address the better answer?
When the duties and your life do not fit. A company secretary's registered office takes the registered-office duties out of your home and does not move when you do, though section 30 still requires the company's name and number wherever it carries on business or keeps its books. Four things usually decide it.
- The house is empty during ordinary business hours.
- You would rather your home address were not on the register.
- Your tenancy or your scheme's by-laws are unclear about business use.
- You expect to move within the next year or two.
PT Corporate Services provides a registered office at D12-08, Menara Mitraland, Jalan PJU 5/1, Kota Damansara, 47810 Petaling Jaya, open Monday to Friday from 9:00am to 6:00pm, and acts as named company secretary under the Companies Act 2016. Our guide to registered office address providers in the Klang Valley sets out what to ask any provider first.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use a PO Box as my Sdn Bhd's registered office?
No, in practice. SSM's published format asks for “a no. unit or lot, level or floor, name of the building, name of road, city, postcode & state”, which a box number cannot supply, and section 46(2) requires an office open and accessible to the public during ordinary business hours.
Do I have to put my company's name on my house?
Section 30(1) requires a company to display its registered name and company registration number at its registered office, at every place where its business is carried on and at every place where its books are kept, in the manner the Registrar determines. Section 30(5) makes the company and every officer who contravene the section liable for an offence.
If the registered office rules are broken, is the company fined or am I?
Both. Section 46(4) provides that “the company and every officer who contravene this section commit an offence”, with a fine of up to RM50,000 on conviction. The Act defines an officer, in relation to a corporation, as including “any director, secretary or employee of the corporation”.
Checked on 16 October 2026 against the text of the Companies Act 2016 (Act 777) that SSM publishes.
Sources
- Companies Act 2016 (Act 777), the 2016 gazetted reprint published by SSM — sections 2 (“officer”), 14(1)(d), 30, 46, 47, 48 and 601(2).
- Companies Act 2016, Attorney General's Chambers updated text as at 1 August 2022, published by SSM and marked as not an authentic text — the section 47(2) variant.
- SSM, Submitting Incorporation Particulars for a Company — the required format for the registered office address.
- SSM, Corporate Info — the Particulars of Registered Address and Company Profile products.
- Allen & Gledhill — summary of Innab Salil & Ors v Verve Suites Mont Kiara Management Corporation [2020] 3 CLJ 480 on strata by-laws and business use.