Choosing a proper legal address

Article 54 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation (part 1) from November 30, 1994, No.51-FL provides that the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (EGRUL) must contain legal addresses of legal entities within their locations. This article states that legal entities bear the risks of consequences of non-delivery of legally relevant messages (article 165.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation) that were delivered at the addresses stated in the EGRUL, as well as the risk of absence of their bodies or representatives. Messages delivered at the addresses stated in the EGRUL are considered to be received by legal persons even in the case of their absence at the addresses.

Therefore, a legal address is one of the key components of any company’s operation.

However, practice shows that far from every address is suitable for becoming a legal one.

Cases of denial of registration caused by improper choice of legal address are not uncommon.

Thus, to avoid risks of denial of registration, as well as during establishment of legal entities and introduction of changes in the EGRUL one should check prospective legal addresses in the Federal Information Address System (FIAS).

FIAS is a database that contains information about objects’ addresses.

According to Part 2, Article 8 of the Federal Law from December 28, 2013 No.443-FL “On Federal Information Address System and introduction of changes to the Federal Law “On general principles of organization of local self-government in the Russian Federation” data concerning addresses that is included in the state address register is compulsory for use by central and local authorities. This also concerns provision of central and local government services and postal services.

You can check existence of an address via an e-service Federal Information Address System at the official website of the Federal Tax Service (FTS) of the Russian Federation. If the address is absent in FIAS, one should approach public authorities or local self-government authorities that are entitled to assign addresses to addressing objects, to dispose, change and cancel data concerning addresses in the state address register.