Virtual Office Address - allowed for Location?

[c17abeb9]

Hi there. I'm new to Upwork and have a Virtual Business Trading Address in the country I reside in. For privacy reasons, I would prefer to use this address rather than my home address as a freelancer. Am I allowed to use this as my location on my Upwork profile or must I use my home address? Clarification would be really appreciated.

[prestonhunter · Accepted solution]

re: "Am I allowed to use this as my location on my Upwork profile?

No.

re: "or must I use my home address?"

You use your home address - where you physically live.

But to clarify something:

Upwork does NOT display your "address" on your profile page.

Your profile page only displays the name of the city and country in which you live.

[c17abeb9]

Thanks for the quick reply.

[prestonhunter]

An additional thought:

If you truly want to maximize privacy, you can look into using P.O. boxes for many of your address needs.

Just keep in mind that Upwork identity verification protocols are eventually going to ask to see your government-issued identification documents, such as a driver's license.

There are certain identity verification protocols in which Upwork may want to see that the information that appears on your government-issued ID matches the information in your Upwork profile.

Can your driver's license feature a P.O. box number instead of a physical address? Maybe. Maybe not.

But certainly there ARE times when you definitely CAN use a P.O. box.

For example, if you regularly work with clients who send you physical materials, you could use a P.O. box exclusively for that purpose.

[c17abeb9]

Thanks for that added information. I realise now that I indicated it was a
Virtual Address, but it's actually a physical address that I can receive
mail and parcels to. It's considered a Business Trading Address which I
understand can be used for business communication, and they will send or
scan any physical post I receive. Here's the description of what I mean: "
Your trading address is used for all of your day to day business
correspondence,
such as for your paperwork from your suppliers, customers, deliveries,
banking and finance, equipment leasing etc."

It's kind of like what you mention as far as. PO box goes except I don't
actually have to go collect the mail, they'll forward it to me.

[prestonhunter]

Yes, that can be a useful tool.

But I can't answer whether or not you can use a virtual address such as that for the government identification documents (driver's license/passport/etc.) that Upwork will want to see when verifying your identity.