Is a virtual office legal?

In the age of the internet, when most matters are handled electronically, having a stationary office often becomes an unnecessary luxury that generates huge costs. Many companies do not need to rent physical office space, opting for a new and better alternative – a virtual office. But is using virtual office services fully legal?

A virtual office is a service that provides an address for company registration, relying on full outsourcing of office services without the need for physical presence at a specific location. In practice, when renting a virtual office, you receive an address under which you can register your company. The virtual office will also provide full office services, and you can benefit from many other services such as:

• Using the provided address for official correspondence or contact with contractors.
• Receiving correspondence
• Sending information about received correspondence via email or SMS.
• Scanning correspondence without the need for personal collection.
• Legal and accounting advice.
• Full advertising service.

Are virtual office services fully legal? Let’s clear the doubts...

But is a virtual office legal? Contrary to appearances, many people have doubts about the legality of this solution and have significant concerns about registering a company under a virtual address. The main source of doubts regarding the legality of virtual offices stem from discussions that took place a few years ago. There were cases when tax offices questioned the possibility of registering a business at a virtual office, refusing to assign a VAT number. Their decision was based on the absence of a specific office number in the building and the lack of the possibility of carrying out managerial functions at the specified company address. However, the Supreme Administrative Court quickly overturned such positions. In one of the well-known cases, it pointed out that there are no regulations that would impose an obligation on the taxpayer to specify a location with such properties. It also emphasized that the authorities did not have the necessary grounds to assert that managerial functions could not be carried out at the specified addresses.

As you can see, doubts about the legality of virtual offices are unfounded. Virtual office services are completely legal as long as the company providing this service has the property owner’s consent for subletting the space to third parties. It is important to carefully check this issue before signing a contract with a virtual office. If this condition is met, we can safely use virtual office services, which is fully in line with Polish law.

Registering a business at a virtual office means that the proper tax office will be the one under which the company’s registered office falls, not the address of its owner’s residence.

A virtual office is a convenience in the form of having a virtual address where a company can be registered without the need for physical presence at that location, used by more and more entrepreneurs, such as:

• start-ups,
• small companies,
• freelancers,
• companies with branches in multiple cities.