Do I need consent to post marketing to a sole trader in the UK?

No. Postal marketing is not covered by PECR so the consent rules that apply to email do not apply. You still need a lawful basis under UK GDPR, and the legitimate interests balancing test is harder when the address is a home.

Can I post marketing to a director's home address listed at Companies House?

You can see the address, but a service address is published for statutory purposes rather than as a marketing list, and marketing sent there is usually received badly. Post to the trading address instead.

Direct mail and the law

Can you post marketing to a sole trader's home address?

Half of every B2B list quietly contains somebody's kitchen table. Here is how to tell, and what changes when it does.

Request an invite The consent question

Written August 2026. General information, not legal advice.

The short answer

You can, but the calculation is different. A limited company's registered office is a corporate address. A sole trader's address is usually a person's home, and that makes it personal data with a much higher expectation of privacy. Postal marketing is not covered by PECR, so there is no consent rule, but your legitimate interests balancing test has to work much harder when the letter lands on somebody's doormat rather than a reception desk. The practical answer is to spot residential addresses before you print and treat them as a separate decision.

Four business types, four different answers

Type	Address you hold	What it means
Limited company	Registered office or trading address	Corporate. If the letter names a person, UK GDPR applies to that name, but the address itself is a business one.
LLP	Registered office	Treated like a company for this purpose. Same as above.
Partnership	Often a home or an office	Closer to individuals. Check what the address actually is before deciding.
Sole trader	Very often a home	Personal data, personal space. The balancing test is harder and the reputational risk is real.

How to spot a residential address before you post

The address has a house name or a flat number and no company name on the line above.
The company appears at Companies House with a director's service address that matches the correspondence address exactly.
There is no website, or the website lists no premises and gives a mobile number.
Postcode data shows a residential delivery point rather than a commercial one.
The company was formed in the last year or two and has no filed accounts showing premises costs.

None of these is conclusive on its own. Two or three together and you should assume it is somebody's home.

The reputational test beats the legal one. A letter that arrives at an office is a business letter. The same letter arriving at a family home, addressed to a person by name, from a company they have never heard of, reads very differently. If you would be uncomfortable explaining how you got the address to the person opening the envelope, do not send it.

If you do decide to send

Say where you got the address, on the letter, plainly. For sole traders that is usually Companies House or their own website, and saying so removes most of the discomfort.
Keep it professional in tone and relevant to the business, not to the person's household.
Give an obvious way to stop, and honour it permanently.
Do not add home addresses to a list you will reuse for years. Hold them for the campaign and review them.
Write the reasoning down once, so if anyone asks why you posted to a home address you have an answer better than nobody thought about it.

Where Rockkt sits in this

Rockkt flags addresses that look residential when the list is built, so the decision is made deliberately by a person rather than by accident at print time. The source line goes on the letter automatically, and the suppression list is held at company level rather than per user.

General information, not legal advice. Read the ICO's guidance on direct marketing for businesses, and take advice if home addresses are a large part of your list.

Questions people actually ask

Is a sole trader's address personal data?

Usually yes. A sole trader is a person rather than a separate legal entity, and their business address is very often their home. Treat it as personal data unless you can see it is genuinely commercial premises.

Do I need consent to post to a sole trader?

No. Postal marketing is not covered by PECR, so the consent rules that apply to email do not apply here. You still need a lawful basis under UK GDPR, and legitimate interests has to survive a harder balancing test when the address is a home.

Can I post to a director at their home address from Companies House?

You can see the address, but that does not make it a good idea. A director's service address is published for statutory purposes, not as a marketing list, and a marketing letter arriving there is likely to be received badly. Post to the trading address instead.

How do I flag residential addresses in a list?

Look for house names and flat numbers with no company on the line above, a correspondence address identical to the director's service address, no premises on the website, and postcode data showing a residential delivery point. Two or three of those together means treat it as a home.

Consent and B2B post Which address to post to MPS and B2B post