Legal Address for Your SIA: Requirements and Options

The Commercial Register rejected 847 SIA applications in 2025 for address-related issues alone. A legal address might sound like a bureaucratic formality — something you fill in on a form and forget about. In practice, it's a requirement that trips up more new business owners than share capital or document preparation combined.

Every SIA registered in Latvia must have a legal address (juridiskā adrese) where the company can receive official correspondence. This address appears in public records, gets used by the State Revenue Service, courts, and the Commercial Register for notifications, and serves as the company's official location. Getting it wrong has consequences.

What the Law Actually Requires

The legal address must be a real, physical location in Latvia. P.O. boxes don't qualify. The address must be specific enough for postal delivery — building number, apartment or office number if applicable, city, and postal code.

Three critical requirements:

Mail must be receivable. If VID or the Commercial Register sends a letter to your legal address and it bounces back as undeliverable, the company gets flagged. Repeated undeliverable mail can trigger a review, fines, or even a process to strike the company from the register.

The property owner must consent. If you don't own the premises, you need written permission from the owner to use the address as your SIA's legal address. This consent must be available for submission to the Commercial Register. Using an address without the owner's knowledge is grounds for registration refusal — and a messy situation if discovered after the fact.

The address must match reality. Registering an address where you have no actual presence and no arrangement to receive mail is a violation. The Register conducts periodic checks, and companies found to have fictitious addresses face fines and forced address changes.

Your Options

Option 1: Your own or rented office

The simplest scenario. You lease office space, include the legal address provision in your lease agreement, and use that address for registration. Your landlord's consent is built into the lease.

Cost: whatever your rent is (EUR 200–1,500+ per month in Riga, depending on location and size). You're paying for the office anyway — the legal address is just one of its functions.

Best for: businesses that need a physical workspace for operations, client meetings, or team collaboration.

Option 2: Virtual office

A virtual office provides a legal address and mail handling without physical office space. You get an address for your registration, someone receives and forwards your mail, and in some cases you get access to meeting rooms on an hourly basis.

Cost: EUR 25–50 per month (EUR 300–600 annually) in Riga. Cheaper options exist outside the capital.

In our experience, virtual offices are the right choice for about 60% of new SIAs. They're particularly good for:

Remote-first businesses with no need for physical space
Non-resident founders who need a Latvian address
Businesses testing the Latvian market before committing to office space
Sole-director SIAs where the director works from home

The key is choosing a reputable provider. Cheap virtual offices (under EUR 15/month) sometimes house hundreds of companies at a single address. Banks notice this. The Commercial Register notices this. If your legal address is shared with 200 other companies, expect additional scrutiny during bank account opening and potential questions from VID.

Option 3: Home address

Using your residential address as your SIA's legal address is legally permitted, with caveats. You must own the property or have the owner's written consent. If you live in an apartment building, some buildings' internal rules may restrict commercial use of residential addresses.

Cost: free (assuming you already live there).

The downsides: your home address becomes public record. Anyone searching for your company in the Commercial Register sees where you live. For some business owners, this is a privacy concern. For others (say, a consultant working from a home office), it's perfectly acceptable.

Also worth noting: if you later change addresses, you'll need to update the Commercial Register (EUR 20–40 state fee plus potential notary costs for amending the articles of association if the address is specified there).

Common Mistakes

Using an address without the owner knowing. It happens more than you'd think. A founder uses a friend's apartment address or a previous employer's office without getting formal consent. When the Commercial Register sends verification mail, confusion follows. Worst case: the registration is refused or later invalidated.

Choosing the cheapest virtual office without checking reputation. A EUR 10/month address at a location hosting 500 companies creates problems downstream. Banks flag these addresses. In our experience, spending EUR 30–50 per month on a higher-quality virtual office saves significant frustration during bank account opening.

Forgetting to update the address after moving. If your legal address changes and you don't notify the Commercial Register within the required timeframe, any official notices sent to the old address are still considered legally delivered. You can miss a tax notification, a court summons, or a Register request — and face consequences for non-response.

Need a Legal Address for Your SIA?

The right address choice avoids registration delays and bank account complications. Corvus Accounting & Tax can recommend reputable virtual office providers or help you navigate the requirements for using your own premises.

Get a free consultation →