Is a CPA’s address public in California?

Yes. The California Board of Accountancy regulation on address changes says the address of record is public information, and the CBA says its License Lookup shows the address of record. If the address of record is a post office box or mail drop, the board also needs a street address, and its change of address form says that alternate address will not be posted on the License Lookup.

Can a CPA firm use a virtual address as its office?

As a mailing address, often yes, under each state’s conditions. As an office, the rules point to a real place. Texas asks for a resident manager for each Texas office, New York asks for the physical address of each New York office and the person in charge of it, and Florida defines an office as a place where public accounting is conducted or any place whose physical address appears in advertising.

Does CPAverify show a CPA firm’s street address?

Not in our sample. On October 11, 2026, we opened 100 firm records on CPAverify from California, Texas, Florida, and Illinois. Each showed a business address with a city and state, and none had a street line. A state board’s own lookup can show more. The California Board of Accountancy says its License Lookup shows the address of record.

Can a Florida CPA firm use a P.O. box?

As a mailing address, yes, in addition to the address of record. Florida rule 61H1-26.005 says CPAs and firms must give the board a street address, that firms with several locations list the principal place of business as the address of record, and that a post office box may be used for a mailing address but must be in addition to the address of record.

Are New York CPA firms on CPAverify?

Individual New York CPA records can appear, but the CPAverify firm search says firm license data is not currently sent for New York, along with CNMI, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Wyoming. New York firms register with the State Education Department’s Office of the Professions.

CPA Firm License Addresses: What the Board Asks For, and What the Public Lookup Shows

Short answer

State boards of accountancy ask for two kinds of address: one where the board can reach you, and one for each office where the firm practices. California calls the first the address of record and says it is public information. Its form requires a licensee who uses a P.O. box or mail drop to give a street address, and says that address will not be posted on the License Lookup. Texas and New York ask for the address of each office in the state, and Florida defines an office to include any place whose physical address appears in advertising. A mailing address can fill the mail line. The office lines ask about a real place. On the national CPAverify site, the 100 firm records we sampled on October 11, 2026 showed a city and state but no street address.

Get your US address →

Key takeaways

California’s regulation says the address of record “is public information.” If it is a post office box or mail drop, the board also needs a street address, and its form says that alternate address “will not be posted” on the License Lookup.
Texas requires a firm license when a firm “establishes or maintains an office in this state,” and the application lists the firm’s post office address, its principal office, each Texas office, and a resident manager for each one.
Florida defines an office as a place where public accounting is conducted “or any place for which the physical address is identified in advertising.” A street address printed on a website can count.
New York’s firm registration form asks for a mailing address and “the physical address of each office location in New York,” with the person in charge of each office.
In our October 11, 2026 sample of 100 firm records on CPAverify from California, Texas, Florida, and Illinois, the business address showed a city and state, and the street line was empty in each one.

Two kinds of address on a CPA license

A CPA license and a CPA firm license each come with address lines. The lines do different jobs. One tells the board where to send notices, renewal forms, and, if it comes to that, a complaint. The other tells the board where the firm practices.

Some states also ask for the home address of each owner. Whether each address becomes public depends on the state. Some boards publish the address they hold. The national lookup run by the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA), called CPAverify, shows less. This guide walks through four large states and the national lookup, and then sorts out where a mailing address fits.

This guide follows the same approach as our guides on the two NPI address fields and on attorney registration addresses. The pattern is similar. A board accepts a mail address for reaching you, and it asks a separate question about where the work happens.

State	Address the board uses to reach you	Office addresses the firm reports	What the state says about public access
California	Address of record. A P.O. box or mail drop is allowed if the board also gets a street address	Street address of the firm’s principal office, if the address of record is a P.O. box or mail drop	The address of record “is public information,” and the CBA says its License Lookup shows it
Texas	The firm’s post office address in Texas, if it has a Texas office	The principal office, each office in Texas, and the resident manager of each office	We did not review the board’s own lookup for this guide
Florida	Mailing address. A post office box is allowed in addition to the address of record	Street address of the office. Firms with several locations list the principal place of business as the address of record	We did not review the department’s own lookup for this guide
New York	The firm’s mailing address on Form 6R	The physical address of each New York office and the person in charge of it	We did not review the state’s own lookup for this guide. CPAverify does not receive New York firm data

Address lines for CPA firms in four states, as described in each state’s rules and forms on October 11, 2026.

Did this answer your question?

California: a public address of record, with a second address kept off the lookup

California uses one main term, the address of record. The California Board of Accountancy (CBA) regulation on address changes, Title 16, section 3, says each licensee must report a change within 30 days. It then says: “The address of record is public information.” The same sentence appears in the part of the rule for licensed firms.

The CBA’s consumer FAQ lists what its License Lookup displays. The list includes the licensee or firm name, license type and number, status, issue and expiration dates, and “Address of Record.” By the CBA’s account, then, the address you give as your address of record is what a License Lookup visitor sees.

The rule allows a mailing address, with one condition. For an individual, it says: “If the address of record is a post office box or mail drop, the change of address notification shall include the street address of either the licensee’s primary place of employment or his or her residence.” For a firm, the condition is “the street address of the firm’s principal office.”

The CBA’s change of address form shows how that second address is handled. It has a section for an alternate address for mail drops and P.O. boxes, and a note beside it says “This alternate address will not be posted on CBA’s online License Lookup.” In practice, a licensee who works from home can give a mailing address as the address of record and give the home street address in the alternate section, where the form says it is not posted.

The regulation does not define “mail drop.” A mailbox at a mail receiving business looks like the kind of address the phrase describes, but we did not find a CBA definition. If you plan to use one, ask the board how it treats that address before you file.

The CBA also sells its licensee list

The CBA form says “The CBA maintains a list of all licensees. This list is sold to requestors for mailing list purposes.” The form has a box to check if you do not want your name on that list. It also notes that your name and address of record are public information. The address you choose as your address of record can travel further than the License Lookup.

The firm side of the rule names who it covers. A “licensed firm” in section 3 “includes any partnership or professional corporation licensed by the Board” to practice public accountancy. Those are the two firm shapes this part of the California rule names. How the LLC and PLLC choice plays out for licensed practices across states is covered in PLLC vs LLC for licensed professionals. For the address question, the point is narrow: when a firm uses a mail-only address of record, the board still gets the street address of the principal office.

Ready to set up your business address?

See which US cities fit — about a minute, no card needed.

See your options — no card →

Texas: a post office address, a principal office, and each Texas office

Texas ties the firm license to offices. Section 901.351 of the Texas Occupations Code says “A firm is required to hold a firm license under this subchapter if the firm establishes or maintains an office in this state.” Section 901.354 adds that an applicant “must register each office of the firm in this state.”

The application is an affidavit, and section 901.354(g) lists what it states. The address items are separate lines:

“the firm’s post office address in this state if the firm has an office in this state”
“the address of the firm’s principal office”
“the address of each office of the firm in this state if the firm has an office in this state”
“the name of the resident manager of each office of the firm in this state”
“the name, residence, and post office address of” each partner, member, shareholder, or other owner

The statute treats the post office address and the office as two things. The post office address is where mail goes. An office comes with a resident manager, which only makes sense for a place where people work. A mailing address fits the first line. Listing it as a Texas office would mean naming a resident manager for a place where no one practices.

Changes have a deadline. Section 901.354(j) says the firm “shall notify the board not later than the 31st day after the date on which information in the affidavit is changed.” A move to a new office, or a new post office address, is information in the affidavit.

Florida: an address in your advertising can count as an office

Florida also licenses firms by office. Section 473.3101 of the Florida Statutes requires a license for “Any firm with an office in this state” that performs the services described in section 473.302(8)(a) or uses the CPA title, and it says “The board shall define by rule what constitutes an office.”

The board’s rule, 61H1-20.001(8), gives that definition: “An ‘office’ shall be deemed and construed to mean a place in which public accounting is conducted or any place for which the physical address is identified in advertising. For a certified public accountant employed by a Florida firm, ‘office’ shall also mean the licensee’s designated address of record.”

The second half of the first sentence matters for anyone thinking about a virtual address. If a firm prints a Florida street address on its website, letterhead, or ads as its location, that address can count as an office under this rule, whether or not anyone works there. A mailing address used only to receive mail is a different case from an address the firm advertises as its location.

The address rule, 61H1-26.005, sets out the rest. CPAs and firms must give the board “a correct email address and street address,” including “the street address of their office.” It continues: “Firms with multiple locations shall list their principal place of business as their address of record. A post office box may be used for a mailing address, but it must be in addition to the address of record.” Changes go to the board in writing within thirty days.

This sits on top of a general Florida statute, section 455.275, which makes each licensee of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation responsible for keeping the department informed of their “current mailing address, e-mail address, and place of practice.” Florida, then, asks for both: a mailing address, which can be a box, and a street address of record for the office.

New York: a mailing address and the physical address of each office

New York registers CPA firms through the State Education Department’s Office of the Professions. Its Q&A lists the structures allowed: a single owner firm can be a professional limited liability company, a professional services corporation, or a sole proprietorship, and a multiple owner firm can be a partnership, a professional limited liability partnership, a professional limited liability company, or a professional services corporation. It adds: “General business corporations and other non-professional entities are not allowed to register as public accounting firms.”

The registration form, CPA Form 6R, has a “Mailing Address” line for the firm. It then asks whether the firm has offices in New York and, if so, to “provide a list of the physical address of each office location in New York and the name of the responsible individual in charge of that office.” For each licensed owner, it asks for a “residential address” and an “office address.” One of the fee options, the sliding scale, is calculated in part by office: “$50 office fee and $50 for each additional NYS office.”

The form uses the word physical for office locations and keeps the mailing address on its own line. As in Texas, the office lines ask for a real place and a person in charge of it.

What CPAverify shows: our count

CPAverify is the public search on NASBA’s Accountancy Licensee Database. NASBA’s description of that database says “A subset of publicly available CPA and accounting firm license data is available through CPAverify” as the public search. We wanted to know which address parts are in that subset.

On October 11, 2026, we searched the firm tab for names containing “CPA,” filtered by state, and opened the first 25 firm records for each of California, Texas, Florida, and Illinois. Then we searched the CPA tab for a common surname in California, Texas, and Florida and opened the first 20 records for each. For each record, we checked which address parts were present in the data the page loaded, not only what it displayed.

0 of 100

Firm records with a street address

California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, 25 each, as of our October 11, 2026 count

100 of 100

Firm records with a city and state

Shown under “Business Address,” and for Florida also under “Mailing Address”

In the firm records, each one listed a business address with a city and state, and no street line, ZIP code, phone number, or email. The 25 Florida records also had a mailing address entry, again with a city and state only. The individual CPA records followed the same pattern: none of the 98 address entries in the 60 records we opened had a street line. A few licenses from other states that appeared in those results carried an entry labeled “Home,” usually with a city and no street line.

Two limits apply. First, the firm search page says “Firm license data is not currently sent for the following jurisdictions: CNMI, ND, NY, PA, WV and WY,” and that results do not include Hawaii and New Mexico. A New York firm will not show up in the firm search. Second, CPAverify is one channel. The record pages say to contact the state board “for official verification of information,” and the board may publish more than CPAverify does. California is the clear case: the CBA says its own License Lookup shows the address of record. We could not load the Department of Consumer Affairs license search from our tools on October 11, 2026, so we rely on the CBA’s description of it.

The mail line, the office line, and the advertising rule

Read side by side, the four accountancy rules sort a CPA firm’s addresses into three questions. Where should board mail go? Where does the firm practice public accounting? And what address does the firm hold out to clients? A P.O. box, a mailbox at a mail receiving business, or a business address service can answer the first question. The second and third questions are about the place where the firm’s accountants do the work.

Mail line: California’s address of record (with the alternate street address on file), Texas’s post office address, Florida’s mailing address, and New York’s Form 6R mailing address can each be an address that only receives mail, under the conditions each state sets.
Office line: Texas offices come with a resident manager, New York offices with a physical address and a person in charge, and Florida treats an advertised street address as an office. These lines describe a real place of practice.
Owner lines: Texas asks for each owner’s residence and post office address, and New York asks for each licensed owner’s residential address. These go to the board on the application. We did not find either state saying it publishes them, and we did not test that.
Advertising: in Florida, the address you put in your marketing is part of the office question. Read rule 61H1-20.001(8) before a street address goes on the firm’s website or engagement letters as its location.

A home-based CPA in California has the clearest option of the four. The rule expects a home street address to reach the board when the address of record is a box or mail drop, and the form says that alternate address is not posted on the lookup. In Texas, Florida, and New York, a CPA whose only place of practice in the state is a home office has a rule question to answer about that home, since the office lines ask where the work happens. A mailing address can then cover the mail line, but it does not replace the office line.

If you also prepare returns, the IRS side is a separate set of records. The PTIN, the e-file application, and the address each one asks for are covered in our guide to tax preparer LLC credentials and the business address.

Before you file the address lines

Pull the current address form from your board of accountancy, or the firm application if you are licensing a firm, and work through its lines in order. Decide which address you want the public to see, since in a state like California that is the address of record. Then list the places where the firm actually practices and report each one as an office where the state asks for it.

If you plan to use a business address service for mail, confirm with the board how it treats that address, and keep it off any line that asks for an office, a place of practice, or a physical location. In Florida, also keep it off your advertising as a location unless it is a real office.

If you want to know how an address is classified before it goes on an accountancy board form, our free address checker shows that.

Not legal or tax advice

This guide summarizes the regulations, statutes, board forms, and lookup records listed in its sources, as read on October 11, 2026. We reviewed four states, and rules in other states differ. Confirm the address rules with your state board of accountancy before you file.