Do I Have to Put My Business Address on My Website? No General US Rule, but Four Narrower Ones Put It on a Screen, in an Email, or on a Listing

What no federal rule requires

Start with what we did not find. The federal rule that sets shipping deadlines for online orders is the Federal Trade Commission's Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule, 16 CFR Part 435. It sets the deadline for shipping an order and the refund you owe when you cannot ship in time. It does not say a seller's address must appear on the site. Section 5 of the FTC Act, which bans deceptive practices, does not contain an address requirement either. We found no federal 'imprint' rule for websites in general.

The United Kingdom and the European Union do have rules of that kind. A UK company must show on its websites the part of the UK where it is registered, its registered number, and 'the address of the company's registered office', under regulation 25 of the Company, Limited Liability Partnership and Business (Names and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2015. Any UK online service, an 'information society service' in the regulation's words, must make available 'the geographic address at which the service provider is established', under regulation 6(1)(b) of the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002, and Article 5(1)(b) of the EU E-Commerce Directive, 2000/31/EC, uses the same words. Those rules apply to companies registered there and to service providers established there. They are why a UK solicitor had a page to write. That page, from 2018, was the fourth result for a US search, and it draws the UK line at online trading: 'if you're a sole trader and you're not carrying on e-commerce, and you're not contracting online in any way, then you don't legally need to have an address on your website'. That sentence describes UK law. It does not describe the position of a US business selling to US customers.

In the sources we read, then, an address requirement for a US business comes from one of four narrower places: a state statute about online sales, a federal email rule, a federal children's privacy rule, and a federal marketplace rule. Of the four, the state statute is the one that puts the address on your own sales screen, so it comes first.

California: Bus. & Prof. Code 17538(d) applies to any online seller with a California buyer

California Business and Professions Code section 17538 is the state's mail-order and online-sales statute. Subdivision (a) is the shipping-deadline rule, the state counterpart of the FTC rule above. Subdivision (d) is the part that puts an address on a screen. It applies to 'a vendor conducting business through the Internet or any other electronic means of communication' and it applies 'when the transaction involves a buyer located in this state'. On its face, subdivision (d) turns on where the buyer is, and it does not ask where the vendor is. A seller in Texas with a buyer in San Diego reads as inside the subdivision, and how far California can enforce that against an out-of-state seller is a question for a California attorney.

Paragraph (d)(1) is the requirement: 'Before accepting any payment or processing any debit or credit charge or funds transfer, the vendor shall disclose to the buyer in writing or by electronic means of communication, such as e-mail or an on-screen notice, the vendor's return and refund policy, the legal name under which the business is conducted and, except as provided in paragraph (3), the complete street address from which the business is actually conducted.'

Paragraph (d)(2) says where an on-screen disclosure goes. The legal name and address must appear on 'the first screen displayed when the vendor's electronic site is accessed', or 'the screen on which goods or services are first offered', or 'the screen on which a buyer may place the order for goods or services', or 'the screen on which the buyer may enter payment information, such as a credit card account number'. For nonbrowser-based technologies the standard is 'a manner that gives the user a reasonable opportunity to review that information'. The disclosure 'shall not be structured to be smaller or less legible than the text of the offer of the goods or services', and it must be 'accompanied by an adjacent statement describing how the buyer may receive the information at the buyer's e-mail address'. A vendor who receives that request has five days to send it.

The section has been in this form since January 1, 2003, the effective date of its most recent amendment (Stats. 2002, ch. 326), and subdivision (g) makes a violation a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in county jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both. Subdivision (f)(5) carves out one small case: a person responding to an electronic agent is not a 'vendor' if all transactions with that buyer add up to ten dollars or less.

Read the words 'actually conducted'

The statute does not ask for 'a business address'. It asks for 'the complete street address from which the business is actually conducted'. For a seller who works from an office, that is the office. For a seller who packs orders at the kitchen table, the plain reading is the home, and that reading is likely why the question gets searched in the first place.

The section does not use the words 'virtual office', 'coworking', or 'mail forwarding' anywhere. We searched the full text. What it does contain is one defined alternative, in paragraph (d)(3), for a vendor that uses a private mailbox receiving service. Everything else about which address qualifies as the place where the business is 'actually conducted' is a question of fact about your business, and the section does not answer it for you.

The private mailbox path: 17538(d)(3) and 17538.5

Paragraph (d)(3) reads: 'The complete street address need not be disclosed as required by paragraph (1) if the vendor utilizes a private mailbox receiving service and all of the following conditions are met: (A) the vendor satisfies the conditions described in paragraph (2) of subdivision (b) of Section 17538.5, (B) the vendor discloses the actual street address of the private mailbox receiving service in the manner prescribed by this subdivision for the disclosure of the vendor's actual street address, and (C) the vendor and the private mailbox receiving service comply with all of the requirements of subdivisions (c) to (f), inclusive, of Section 17538.5.'

Section 17538.5 is California's private mailbox statute, in force in its current form since January 1, 1995. Subdivision (b)(2) holds the two conditions that (d)(3)(A) points to. A person who runs the business from a residence 'is not required to disclose the residence address if both of the following conditions are satisfied: (A) The person's current business street address or home address is contained in a United States Postal Service (USPS) Form 1583 that is filed with the USPS. (B) The person has signed an acknowledgement form substantially in accordance with the provisions set forth in subdivision (f) which, among other things, authorizes the commercial mail receiving agency to act as that person's agent for service of process.'

Subdivisions (c) and (d) put duties on the mailbox operator, which the statute calls a commercial mail receiving agency, or CMRA. Before providing service it must obtain 'at least two pieces of identification' and the customer's signed acknowledgment. It must keep a copy of the customer's Form 1583 and both pieces of identification 'for a period of two years after the termination of service' and produce them to the Department of Consumer Affairs or a law enforcement agency on request. It must accept service of process for its customers and keep doing so for two years after a customer leaves. On receiving papers it must place a copy or a notice in the customer's mailbox within 48 hours and mail the documents to the customer's last known home address within five days. The acknowledgment in subdivision (f) has the customer state, in the first person, 'I am obligated to disclose my actual home address or place of residence on a USPS Form 1583'.

The path is specific. It is a private mailbox at a CMRA, with a Form 1583 on file, a signed acknowledgment that the CMRA can accept legal papers for you, and an operator that runs the box under subdivisions (c) to (f) of 17538.5, which is condition (C) of (d)(3). The address you then show is the CMRA's actual street address, in the same place on the screen the statute would have put your own. A CMRA flag on an address in USPS data is the record that the operator registered with the Postal Service, which is a registration requirement for any service that receives mail for other people, including coworking spaces and virtual offices. On this path, that record is the point.

Subdivision (a) of 17538.5 reaches past websites. It makes it unlawful, 'in the sale or offering for sale of consumer goods or services', for a person conducting business in California that uses 'a post office box address, a private mailbox receiving service, or a street address representing a site used for the receipt or delivery of mail or as a telephone answering service' to leave its legal name and the street address from which business is actually conducted out of 'all advertising and promotional materials, including order blanks and forms', with the same residence exception in (b)(2). Subdivision (b)(1) exempts a business that sells mostly at retail from premises open to the public, and a business licensed by a state board or agency that keeps the business's street or home address on record and may disclose it. The penalty in (a) is up to six months in county jail, a fine of up to $2,500, or both.

Read (b)(2)(A) again. The residence exception is written around a USPS Form 1583, which is the form a commercial mail receiving agency collects from its customers. A post office box at a post office is opened on a different form and comes with no acknowledgment of the kind in subdivision (f). As we read the section, a California home business that advertises with a plain post office box has no residence exception to point to, while the same business with a private mailbox at a CMRA does. That is our reading of the text. We have not found a court decision or an agency statement that says it in so many words, and it is a question to put to a California attorney before you rely on it.

Three federal rules that attach to something your site does

None of the federal rules below applies to a website because it is a website. Each attaches to an activity, and the address requirement comes with the activity.

CAN-SPAM. 15 U.S.C. 7704(a)(5)(A)(iii) makes it unlawful to send a commercial email that does not include 'a valid physical postal address of the sender'. The FTC's rule at 16 CFR 316.2(p) defines that phrase to cover three kinds of address: the sender's current street address, a post office box the sender has registered with the Postal Service, or a private mailbox the sender has registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established under Postal Service regulations. That is the address in your newsletter footer. It is not on your website unless you put it there, and we cover the three categories in our article on the CAN-SPAM address rule.

COPPA. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule applies to an operator of a website or online service directed to children under 13, and to an operator with actual knowledge that it is collecting personal information from a child. 16 CFR 312.4(d)(1) requires the online privacy notice to state 'the name, address, telephone number, and email address of all operators collecting or maintaining personal information from children through the website or online service'. The FTC amended the rule in 2025, effective June 23, 2025, with a compliance date of April 22, 2026 for most provisions, and that paragraph kept its number and its substance; the one wording change was the rule-wide switch from 'Web site' to 'website'. The rule does not say what kind of address. An operator whose only business address is a founder's home puts that home in the notice unless it has another address it can receive mail at. If your site is not directed to children and you do not knowingly collect a child's information, the rule does not reach you.

The INFORM Consumers Act. 15 U.S.C. 45f puts two duties on an online marketplace that matter here. Under subsection (a), the marketplace must collect and verify the identity, including a physical address, of any 'high-volume third party seller', which subsection (f) defines as a seller with 200 or more discrete sales and $5,000 or more in gross revenues in any continuous 12-month period during the previous 24 months. Under subsection (b)(1), for a high-volume seller with $20,000 or more in annual gross revenues on that marketplace, the marketplace must disclose the seller's full name, physical address, and contact information to consumers 'on the product listing page (including via hyperlink)' or in the order confirmation and the consumer's account transaction history. Subsection (b)(2) holds the residential carve-out. For a seller that certifies it 'does not have a business address and only has a residential street address, or has a combined business and residential address', the marketplace may, at the seller's request, 'disclose only the country and, if applicable, the State in which such seller resides' and tell consumers that no business address is available. The rule sits on the marketplace, and it reaches your listings on Amazon, Etsy, eBay, or TikTok Shop. It does not reach the pages of your own site. Our marketplace seller address article shows where Etsy and Amazon display a seller's address today, and our TikTok Shop article notes the INFORM disclosure on TikTok listings.

Platform rules that decide where your address shows

A second layer sits under the statutes: the platforms your business runs on have their own display rules, and those decide where an address appears whether or not a statute asked for it.

• Shopify. Shopify keeps the store contact address, the legal business details, and the Shopify Payments address as separate fields, and whether the contact address also shows on a contact page or in footer links depends on your theme. Shopify Payments does not accept a PO Box or a Private Mail Box as the business address. Our Shopify article walks through each field.
• Google Business Profile. Google's guidelines say: 'If you're a service-area business, you should hide your business address from customers. For example, if you're a plumber and run your business from your residential address, clear the address from your Business Profile.' A business that shows its address 'should maintain permanent fixed signage of their business name at the address', and 'P.O. boxes or mailboxes located at remote locations aren't acceptable'. A business that serves customers at its location shows it, and a business that only goes to the customer hides it.
• Marketplaces. Etsy shows a shop's city and state on every listing. Amazon shows a seller's business address behind the storefront link. Both collect the full address at registration, and the INFORM Act adds the public disclosure for high-volume sellers with $20,000 or more a year on that marketplace. Our marketplace article has the table.
• Your domain. The registrant address on a domain is a separate record from anything on the site. Our WHOIS article covers when it is public and how registrar privacy works.

Everything else is your decision, and that is where a home address goes public

Take away the four rules and the platform layer, and what remains is the address on your contact page, your footer, your About page, your invoices, your email signature, and the structured data that a theme or an SEO plugin writes into the page. None of the rules we read puts those there, which is the point our article on living privately with an LLC makes: none of the rules we read puts them there. You do. Of those rules, the one that attaches to the address you choose is 17538.5(a), above. As we read the words 'all advertising and promotional materials', a business in California selling consumer goods or services that shows a post office box, a private mailbox, or a mail-receiving street address on its site has to show its legal name and its actual street address with it. Subdivision (b)(1) takes some businesses out of the section altogether, and the (b)(2) residence exception lifts the street address, though not the name, for a home business with a Form 1583 and the acknowledgment on file.

Even the page California requires of a commercial site that collects personal information from its residents does not ask for an address. The California Online Privacy Protection Act, Bus. & Prof. Code 22575, requires an operator of a commercial website that collects personally identifiable information from California consumers to post a privacy policy. Subdivision (b) lists what that policy must do, and every item is about data: the categories of personal information collected and the third parties it may be shared with, any process for reviewing and requesting changes to that information, how the operator notifies consumers of material changes, the policy's effective date, how the operator responds to Do Not Track signals, and whether other parties may collect personal information across sites. The words 'address', 'mailing', and 'contact' do not appear in the section. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) regulations are a separate regime that we did not read for this article. A privacy policy that shows a postal address shows it because someone chose to.

That is the useful thing about the question. If your home address is on your site today and none of the rules above put it there, you can take it down this afternoon and replace it with an address you can receive mail at. If one of the rules does apply, the same replacement works, as long as the replacement is the kind of address that rule accepts.

One more place a home address goes public is your state filing. The registered agent field and the principal office field in an LLC or corporation record are public in most states, and our article on what becomes public when you use your home address goes through those fields. They are separate from the website, and fixing one does not fix the other.

Which address to show when you show one

The rules above accept different categories of address, and the category matters more than the provider. Here is how each category fares under the rules in this article.

• The street address where you actually work. An office you rent and work from, or your home. This is the address 17538(d)(1) describes, it satisfies CAN-SPAM's first category, and it is an address COPPA and INFORM accept. If it is your home, every rule that requires it publishes your home.
• A private mailbox at a commercial mail receiving agency. USPS rules require the operator to register and to keep your Form 1583, and require the address to carry a 'PMB' (private mailbox) or '#' designation for the box number. CAN-SPAM's third category accepts it. California accepts it on the 17538(d)(3) path, with the Form 1583, the acknowledgment, and the operator duties described above, and 17538.5 lets a California home business advertise with it in place of the home address. Shopify Payments rejects it as the business address, and some business banks reject it under their own account rules, which our bank account address article goes through.
• A post office box. CAN-SPAM's second category accepts a registered post office box. 17538(d)(1) asks for a street address, and a post office box is not one; the substitute the statute provides is the private mailbox path, and a post office box is not on it. In California advertising of consumer goods or services, 17538.5(a) requires the legal name and the actual street address next to a post office box unless (b)(1) exempts the business; on our reading of (b)(2)(A) above, a plain post office box has no residence exception to point to.
• A business address service or virtual office. Ask the provider two questions first: is the address registered with USPS as a commercial mail receiving agency, and will the provider file your Form 1583? If yes, you are in the private mailbox category above, with its rules. If the provider says the address is an office and you do not work there, the words of 17538(d)(1) point at the place where you do work, and our reading is that the (d)(3) path is the one the statute offers for that situation. In California, a 'street address representing a site used for the receipt or delivery of mail' is on the 17538.5(a) list, so a business in California selling consumer goods or services that advertises with one adds its legal name and actual street address, unless (b)(1) exempts the business; the (b)(2) residence exception, for a business with a Form 1583 and the acknowledgment on file, lifts only the street address. We have not seen a California agency or court apply either section to a virtual office address, and a California attorney can tell you how they apply to yours.

Before you publish an address

A short list to run through before the address goes on the site.

• Decide which rules apply. Do you sell goods or services online to buyers in California? Do you send commercial email? Is any part of your site directed to children under 13, or do you knowingly collect a child's information? Do you sell at high volume on one online marketplace, meaning 200 or more sales and $20,000 or more a year? Each yes brings one rule from this article with it.
• If 17538(d) applies, disclose the return and refund policy, the legal name, and the street address before you take payment. If the name and address go on screen, put them on one of the four screens, at least as legible as the offer text, with a line next to them saying how to get the same information by email. Keep a way to send it within five days.
• If you want to use a private mailbox for the 17538(d)(3) path, confirm that the operator has your Form 1583 on file, that you signed the 17538.5(f) acknowledgment, and that the operator runs its service under 17538.5(c) to (f), which is condition (C) of (d)(3). Show the operator's actual street address, with the PMB or # designation, in the same place your own address would go.
• Match the address across the site. The footer, the contact page, the checkout screen, the email footer, and the privacy policy should carry the same address, and the address on your state filing and on your Shopify or marketplace settings should agree with it. Mismatches are the kind of thing a buyer, a bank, or a platform reviewer notices.
• If your home is on the site and no rule put it there, replace it. If a rule put it there, replace it with an address in a category that rule accepts, and change the state filing separately.