A German business address for your professional firm

• Client-facing materials – proposals, invoices, contracts, email signatures and business cards can show one stable professional address instead of a home address.
• Impressum – a commercial professional website generally needs a serviceable address under § 5 DDG. You remain responsible for the other information the notice requires.
• Registration and correspondence – use the address in the Gewerbeanmeldung, Finanzamt notification or register process that applies, subject to the authority’s requirements and the real operating setup.
• Business mail – eligible official and everyday letters follow your selected mail workflow after activation.
• Business accounts and platforms – the address can support applications and posted verification mail, but each provider applies its own rules.

You must still disclose a shop, studio, workshop, clinic, permanent project office or other operating site accurately where the relevant form or authority requires it.

Active Olea Virtual Office customers can request meeting rooms, coworking desks and private offices at participating locations. This can support pitches, workshops, interviews, advisory sessions and confidential conversations. Workspace usage is booked and paid for separately, and a booking exists only once the operator confirms availability and price and you accept and pay.

Ordinary on-demand workspace is not a permanent office, a dedicated practice or evidence that a regulated practice-seat duty is satisfied, and it must not be presented as any of those. Facilities, confidentiality, accessibility, equipment and guest arrangements are confirmed per request and per location, so include your requirements in the request rather than assuming them.

Some professions have rules that go beyond an ordinary Geschäftsanschrift and Impressum. Depending on the profession these may concern a permanent Kanzlei or berufliche Niederlassung, a chamber district, secure records, client confidentiality, accessibility, signage, staff presence or rooms continuously available to the professional.

• Lawyers – § 27 BRAO requires a Kanzlei. The safe position is that a purely virtual address, or an ordinary on-demand coworking arrangement, should not be presented as satisfying that duty.
• Tax advisers – § 34 StBerG concerns the berufliche Niederlassung. A standard Virtual Office must not be marketed as satisfying that requirement by itself.
• Other regulated professions – auditors, doctors, psychotherapists, architects, engineers and other chamber professions can have separate premises, records, title and professional-body rules, and one profession’s rule does not generalise to another.

The safe position for a customer is simple: use the standard Virtual Office only after confirming that it fits your profession’s rules. A dedicated office presented as a compliant practice seat is a separate proposition, and it would need its own supported locations, contract, price, operational standard, evidence and professional-body review before it could be offered.

An Olea address can be your firm’s Geschäftsanschrift for correspondence and for the filings that accept it. It does not by itself create a Betriebsstätte under § 12 AO or an Ort der Geschäftsleitung under § 10 AO. Those concepts depend on the real premises, access, activity and management arrangements, and occasional meetings or on-demand workspace use do not automatically establish either.

• You – describe the activity and legal form accurately, choose the correct registration route, maintain professional permissions, meet chamber, confidentiality and recordkeeping duties, keep the Impressum complete and disclose actual operating sites where required.
• Olea – provides the approved address, the supporting use-of-address evidence, the approved-name mail workflow, the Digital Mailbox and access to request separately paid workspace.
• Authorities and registers – examine registrations, classification and evidence, and control their own processing.
• Professional bodies – decide admission and profession-specific practice or premises requirements.
• Banks and platforms – apply their own address, KYC, risk and eligibility rules.

Choose and activate the new address before replacing the old one. Then update the applicable register, Gewerbeamt or Finanzamt record, the Impressum, your professional chamber, banks, platforms, contracts and client communications. The sequence and the documents required depend on the legal form and the profession, so there is no one filing order or timetable that fits every firm – confirm yours with the relevant authority or adviser.