A charity's Address For Service is the primary address where the ACNC sends all correspondence.
An Address For Service can be an email address, or a physical or postal address in Australia. A charity can have both a physical and email address listed as their Address For Service, although the ACNC recommends charities provide an email address to ensure they don't miss important messages and communications from us.
Using an email as your charity's Address For Service
If you provide an email address as your charity's Address For Service, the ACNC will always attempt to contact your charity through that email first.
Because an Address For Service is the address where the ACNC will send important notifications – including reporting reminders – we recommend your charity uses a generic or shared email address (such as 'info@charityname.org.au'), rather than an individual's personal email address.
By using a shared email address for your charity’s Address For Service, you can have more than one person in your organisation regularly checking the inbox. If you use a personal email as your Address For Service, you may miss ACNC emails if that individual is away or leaves the charity.
Be aware that ACNC emails are sometimes filtered to the junk or spam folder in an email account, so we recommend you check these folders for emails from us. To avoid this happening, we recommend adding ACNC email addresses to your contacts list so that our emails will not be sent automatically to the junk or spam folder.
There will be times when we may need to contact your charity through other addresses.
Charity contact details
For ACNC purposes, your charity’s contact information is not the same as its Address For Service.
Your charity’s contact information are those details members of the public can use to contact your charity. These details are likely to be the same as those listed on a charity’s website or used in the charity’s other communications.
When providing contact details to the ACNC, your charity can provide a contact email address, phone number, physical address and a website. Your email or physical address can be the same or different to your charity’s Address For Service.
Your charity's contact details and its Address For Service will appear on its ACNC Charity Register page.
Changes to your charity's Address For Service
It is mandatory to notify the ACNC if your charity’s Address For Service changes. Small charities have 60 days to notify the ACNC, and medium and large charities have 28 days.
Log in to the ACNC Charity Portal to update your charity’s Address For Service. When you sign in, click on your charity's name, then go to 'Manage other charity details'. Open the form 'Change your charity's Address For Service'.
If your charity's contact information changes, you may also need to notify other regulators of the change.
Annual Information Statement reminders
The ACNC sends reminders to charities in the lead-up to their Annual Information Statement due date. An up-to-date Address For Service ensures your charity will not miss these important reminders.
Charities that fail to submit their Annual Information Statement on time are liable for administrative penalties, and may face other compliance action. And a failure to submit an Annual Information Statement for two or more reporting periods leaves a charity at risk of having the ACNC revoke its charity registration as a 'double defaulter'.
Losing ACNC charity registration removes the charity’s entitlement to Commonwealth tax concessions.
Many charities that have had their registration revoked as 'double defaulters' have not had an up-to-date Address For Service. This has meant that reminders and other notifications sent by the ACNC have not been received by the appropriate people within the charity.
Charities registered with ASIC
If your charity is registered with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) as a company or registrable Australian body, it is required to have a registered office address in Australia. These charities should provide a physical address (not a PO box) as their Address For Service.
We suggest that you also provide an email address as your charity’s Address For Service, and we will use this as the primary way to contact your charity.
Although being registered as a charity with the ACNC means it is not a requirement to notify ASIC of a change of address (such as a change to a registered office address, a company’s principal place of business or a director or secretary’s residential address), you can still choose to notify ASIC if you wish to.