Good question. I have been wondering something similar as well.

I plan on setting up a Google My Business listing and wasn't sure how to deal with the address.

I work from home but I meet clients virtually or during non-covid times at their office or a coffee type shop. I have local, regional, and some international clients. I do not want to tank SEO just for the sake of ranking better for local results. Is this possible?

Does anyone have suggestions on the best way to handle address for Google My Business for a small company that has a large region (which I am sure a lot of companies do)

It's so difficult knowing what to do...while spending far too much time worrying about what works / doesn't work for Google!

I've gone onto GMB 20 times to delete the address, only to change my mind at the last second.

Google's official guidelines are very clear. Unless the address is used either for:
(a) face to face contact with customers; or
(b) as the base of operation for a service area within which you visit customers and serve them face to face
then it should not be added.

There are a few exceptions but correspondence addresses, registered addresses (which can be an accountant's address in the UK) and virtual offices are not among them.
[support.google.com...]

I have a client in a sector where (b) applies - not just to my client but everyone in the sector, from a single person business to the household names. Before the COVID lockdowns in the UK we started to see addresses for my client suspended. There were no more during lockdowns but one more recently, a total of 5 in all. Not all the addresses are squeaky clean (indeed we have some naughty ones remaining untouched), the client was advised of the risks and said they were prepared to take them - until addresses started being suspended.

From what I've seen there's no account-wide penalty for a perceived infringement. You get at least one warning (indeed, we've had more than one and the remaining addresses are doing fine). But the address looks to be dead to the point where you'd need a manual reconsideration to get the suspension lifted.

Good to know about the address. I have been planning to setup my account but have not actually looked at the guidelines yet.

What I have done is searched for businesses in my niche in my region and have found half of them list a home address (with the other half actual offices). So I have a feeling a lot of businesses in my niche are breaking the rules. (not that I plan on to)

My reading of the rules is that home addresses are fine if you are a business that operates on a 'callout' basis.

Over a decade ago, Google dealt with PO boxes. I would not be surprised if there was a cull in the works. My hunch (and it is only based on scrutiny in one niche) is that this is an area where attention is going to be focused more. Google have been selling ads here for a while. Perhaps they allowed more breathing space during COVID. But this is an area where it is still pretty easy to rank - and ranking brings far more clicks than organic. It's the first place I look because it's far easier to rank here than what comes underneath. It is an area ripe for monetisation.

For local business GMB has provided us very valuable impressions and traffic and the greater ability to control what people see vs. what you get with a regular organic impression is nice.

However, does anyone know if it suppresses rankings in the regular results on a national basis?

@randle - that's exactly my question (although you've put it much more eloquently). I'm worrying that Google thinks I'm only local, when in reality, I'm global, but with a local office.