Is my home address really visible if I set up my business at home?

Yes. The official business formalities portal states that a home address declared as the company address is published as public data. It appears on the business directory and is picked up by sites such as Pappers or Societe.com.

Does the new 2025 right to hide your address protect auto-entrepreneurs?

No. The decree of 22 August 2025 applies only to companies (directors and shareholders). Entrepreneurs individuels and micro-entrepreneurs come under a different measure, the INSEE non-diffusible (non-disclosed) status.

Is the INSEE non-diffusible status enough?

It removes your address from public disclosure, but it also makes you almost invisible in the business directory, which is a problem when you are looking for clients. It does not erase the data from the register. Not declaring your home at all, through a business address service, avoids this trade-off.

Does a business address service make my home address confidential automatically?

It stops your home from becoming the registered office address, and therefore from appearing in the registers on that basis. However, it does not erase an address already declared elsewhere and does not hide your identity as a director, which stays public.

Does ticking the objection to marketing protect my address?

No. That option targets commercial canvassing only. It has no effect on the legal publication of your address or on the display of your company record.

Protecting your home address when self-employed

In short

When you set up your business at home, that address becomes public data, published in full on the official business directory and picked up by many other sites. Since August 2025, company directors can have their home address hidden from the registers, but the registered office stays public and entrepreneurs individuels (France's sole-trader status) are not covered. Entrepreneurs individuels can use the INSEE non-diffusible (non-disclosed) status, which nonetheless makes them almost invisible in the directory. The simplest solution is never to declare your home in the first place: a business address service keeps your home out of the registers while your business stays visible.

You set up your business from your living room, and the whole thing is done in minutes on the one-stop business formalities portal (guichet unique). What few founders realise is that, by declaring their home as the company address, they have just made their home address public and open to anyone. Here is what is actually published, what the law lets you hide, and the simplest way to keep your home address private.

Your home can become public data

In France, a company's address is public information. The official business formalities portal puts it plainly: “when you give your home address as your company address, that address will be published and made available for reuse as public data”. In other words, if your registered office or your place of business is your home, your street and house number go into the registers.

This address does not sit in a drawer at some government office. It is published on the Annuaire des entreprises (annuaire-entreprises.data.gouv.fr), in the INPI open data, in the BODACC when your business is registered, and is then automatically picked up by countless private sites such as Pappers or Societe.com. A simple search on your name and anyone can find where you live.

Openly visible, in particular: the address of the registered office and of any branches, the SIREN and SIRET numbers, the activity, the legal form, and the director's identity (surname, first names, month and year of birth, town of residence).

Two addresses you should not confuse

Everything hinges on a distinction that the law treats differently:

The company's address (the registered office or place of business): this is public, published in full, with no general exemption.
A company director's private home address: this is a separate field, which enjoys stronger protection and, since 2025, a right to have it hidden.

The trap for the self-employed is that, when you run your business from home, these two addresses become one and the same, published as the company's address.

What 2025 changed, and why it does not solve everything

A decree of 22 August 2025, in force since 25 August 2025, now allows directors to have their private home address hidden from the business registers (RCS and RNE), on a simple request through the one-stop portal. The authorities describe it this way: “directors can now protect information relating to their private home”. The request is processed within a few days. The address does, however, remain accessible to certain authorities and professionals (the courts, the tax authorities, customs, the financial intelligence unit, judicial enforcement officers) and to creditors whose claim is linked to the director's office. The hiding is, moreover, only partial: the town and postcode of the home remain published.

Two important limits, though. First, this measure applies only to companies: entrepreneurs individuels (France's sole-trader status) and micro-entrepreneurs (the simplified self-employed scheme), even when listed in the register, cannot use it. Second, it hides the director's “private home” field, not the registered office, which stays public. The direct consequence: if your home serves as the registered office, having your home address hidden changes nothing, because it is still shown as the company's address.

Your options depending on your status

If you are an auto-entrepreneur (self-employed micro-business) or run an entreprise individuelle (sole proprietorship)

Your dedicated lever is not the 2025 decree but the INSEE “non-diffusible” (non-disclosed) status. By default, your data is disclosable; you can ask at any time for it to be switched to non-disclosed, either when you register (a tick box) or afterwards, on the statut-diffusion-sirene.insee.fr online service (FranceConnect login). Your exact address and geolocation are then removed from public disclosure, and sites that reuse the open data can no longer republish it going forward. On the other hand, records that have already been copied do not vanish on their own: you have to ask each site to take them down.

The downside: non-disclosure makes you almost invisible in the business directory. For a business looking for clients, disappearing from professional search tools is far from ideal. What is more, this confidentiality applies towards the public, but the data stays in the register and remains accessible to the authorities.

Watch out for a false friend: ticking the “objection to the use of my data for marketing purposes” option when you register does not make your address confidential. That box targets commercial canvassing, not the legal publication of your details or the display of your record. It does not hide your address.

If you run a company (SARL, SAS…)

You can ask for your home address to be hidden in the register (decree of 22 August 2025), which is useful if your home is listed as the director's address. But remember: the registered office itself stays public. To genuinely protect your home, the first thing is for the registered office not to be where you live.

Do not confuse confidentiality with protection from seizure either. Since 2015, an entrepreneur individuel's main home cannot be seized as of right by business creditors, and since 2022 their entire personal estate is separated from their professional estate. This is useful protection, but it answers a different question: it stops your home from being seized, not from having its address seen. A home perfectly visible in the registers can be entirely protected from seizure, and vice versa.

The solution that protects at the source: a business address service

All the measures above have one thing in common: they try to hide after the fact an address that is already exposed, and they leave blind spots. The safest way to keep your home private is never to declare it.

That is exactly what a business address service (domiciliation) offers: you set your company's registered office at the address of an approved domiciliation provider rather than at your home. Your home then never enters the registers or the open data. There is nothing to hide afterwards, because nothing has been exposed. Declaring a business address separate from your home is perfectly legal.

The domiciliation business is regulated: the provider must hold approval from the prefecture, and the contract is written, for a minimum term of three months. Above all, this solution offers what non-disclosure cannot: you stay visible and credible, with a genuine business address on your articles, your invoices and the directory, while keeping your home out of reach. You protect your privacy without becoming invisible.

What a business address service does not do

In the interest of honesty, here are its limits:

It does not make you anonymous: your identity as a director (surname, first names, role) stays public in the register. A business address service changes the address of the registered office, not the identity data.
It does not erase an address already declared elsewhere: if your home has served as the registered office in the past, or appears on earlier filings, you also need to activate INSEE non-disclosure or have the address hidden in the register.
It does not replace the actual place of practice when the rules require one: doctors, lawyers or nurses, for example, must declare a place of practice that meets their professional body's requirements, distinct from a mere postal address.

In short: hiding your address after the fact means patching a leak that is already open. Not exposing your home from the outset means removing the risk at its root. For many self-employed people, a business address is the simplest way to separate, once and for all, the business from the home.

Frequently asked questions

Is my home address really visible if I set up my business at home?: Yes. The official business formalities portal states that a home address declared as the company address is published as public data. It appears on the business directory and is picked up by sites such as Pappers or Societe.com.
Does the new 2025 right to hide your address protect auto-entrepreneurs?: No. The decree of 22 August 2025 applies only to companies (directors and shareholders). Entrepreneurs individuels and micro-entrepreneurs come under a different measure, the INSEE non-diffusible (non-disclosed) status.
Is the INSEE non-diffusible status enough?: It removes your address from public disclosure, but it also makes you almost invisible in the business directory, which is a problem when you are looking for clients. It does not erase the data from the register. Not declaring your home at all, through a business address service, avoids this trade-off.
Does a business address service make my home address confidential automatically?: It stops your home from becoming the registered office address, and therefore from appearing in the registers on that basis. However, it does not erase an address already declared elsewhere and does not hide your identity as a director, which stays public.
Does ticking the objection to marketing protect my address?: No. That option targets commercial canvassing only. It has no effect on the legal publication of your address or on the display of your company record.

Sources as of 26 September 2026: the business formalities portal (publication of the company address); service-public.fr, news item on protecting a director's private home (decree of 22 August 2025); INSEE, SIRENE disclosure status (statut-diffusion-sirene.insee.fr); CNIL, reuse of data from the commercial registers; the French Commercial Code, domiciliation activity. This article gives general guidance and does not replace a review of your own situation. Domisiège, business domiciliation in Tours, backed by the firm Épiphyse Conseil.

Protecting your home address when you go self-employed