Startups Stack Exchange Archive

Protecting Personal Information of Startup Owner

Next year I will be launching a digital startup and I plan to register an s-corp or LLC in my home state (Oregon) to protect me from personal liability. My problem is that while this will legally protect me, it also means my home address address (PO boxes not accepted) along with my full name will be available for all of the internet to view.

Aside from renting out an office space, what can I do to help anonymize or protect my personal information?

Answer 1639

I can’t speak in particular about where you are in Oregon, but I know of a few places here that let you pay some small amount (I’ve never looked too seriously, but I think it’s around the price of a PO Box) per month just for an actual address. You can look up virtual offices and see whether there are any places that would work for that, too.

But that said, the law (at least here in Washington) is that the address needs to be where the business is operated. I’ve heard of a UPS store being used, but that’s tricky (in this particular case, it was shown that the person was using a mailbox and photo copier as the main aspect of his business, so it basically was being operated there).

I don’t know about the laws down there, but there’s generally a registered agent listed that can have a different address than the LLC’s. This is a total shot in the dark, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you could set your registered agent address to a PO Box and hide your home address that way. But again, that’s mostly just a matter of how Oregon laws work.

Someone else might be more enlightened on that specific aspect, but I’d probably look into a virtual office, particularly depending on what type of business you’re conducting.


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