What Is an Address Confidentiality Program (ACP)?

Plain-language definition. Grounded in the Address Confidentiality Programs by State matrix and its explainer. Not legal advice.

Short answer

An Address Confidentiality Program is a state-administered program that lets an eligible participant use a state-issued substitute mailing address — typically a state agency P.O. box — in place of their residential address on covered public records. Qualifying mail sent to the substitute address is forwarded to the participant by the administering agency (programs typically limit what classes of mail they forward). ACPs exist to protect people at safety risk, typically survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, or human trafficking; some states add categories such as protected-healthcare workers or election officials.

How the substitute address works

On enrollment, the state designates the substitute address as the participant's address for covered public purposes. Where the program reaches business filings, an enrolled participant can put the substitute address on LLC or corporate documents instead of a home address. Coverage of business filings is the load-bearing variable: 20 states explicitly allow it (including CA, TX, OR, and VT), 8 allow it with limitations, 14 have programs whose statutes do not address business filings — a set that now includes Georgia, whose new general Safe At Home program (SB 324/2024, O.C.G.A. §50-18-150) began accepting applications in July 2026 with business-filing treatment not yet specified, and New Hampshire, whose AG-administered program (RSA 7:43) was confirmed on re-verification — 17 in all whose statutes are silent on business filings — and 3 states (AK, ND, WY) record no enacted ACP at all, with Alabama unconfirmed. The per-state statute or guidance is cited row by row in the matrix.

Who qualifies

Enrollment is eligibility-gated by statute. The core categories across states are survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and human trafficking; California's Safe at Home (Cal. Gov. Code §§6205–6218.5) extends to categories such as elder-abuse survivors, reproductive-healthcare workers, and election officials, and Vermont's Safe at Home covers providers and patients of legally protected healthcare. Eligibility is the defining constraint of the instrument: a founder who does not meet a state's criteria cannot use its ACP, in any state.

What an ACP does not do

• It does not remove prior records. Enrollment is forward-looking; filings made before enrollment typically remain public as filed.
• It does not reach data brokers' existing holdings. Brokers may retain addresses already harvested from public records — that layer is governed by separate deletion statutes, covered in What Is a Data Broker?
• It does not cover every record type. Coverage varies by state; federal records, tax records, and court filings are commonly excluded.
• It is not open enrollment. No qualifying circumstance, no ACP.

An ACP is not an “anonymous LLC”

The two are different instruments solving different problems. An ACP is an eligibility-gated safety program that substitutes an address for one protected person on covered records. What gets called an “anonymous LLC” is a formation outcome available to anyone, produced by choosing a state whose public formation record does not require member or organizer names. One shields a person's address by statute; the other reflects what a state's filing form never asks for. Which states expose which identity fields is tracked in Member Name Visibility by State and Organizer Name Visibility by State.

Not legal advice

Program scope, eligibility, and business-filing applicability are state-specific and statute-driven; the matrix records them as of its last verification. Confirm with the administering agency before relying on coverage.

See also: ACP by State (matrix) · ACP by State — Explainer · What Makes a Business Filing a Public Record?