Registered
agents.

What a registered agent is

The SBA puts it in one line: “A registered agent receives official papers and legal documents on behalf of your company.” The most important of those papers is service of process, the formal notice that someone is suing the business. Washington’s definition is simply an agent “authorized to receive service of any process” for the entity.

The agent’s job is to be reliably reachable at a known address, and to pass what arrives to you quickly. If a lawsuit is served on an agent who never forwards it, the case can go ahead without you.

Who needs one, and in which states

According to the SBA, LLCs, corporations, partnerships and nonprofit corporations need a registered agent in their state before filing. A sole proprietor operating under their own name usually doesn’t, because there is no separate entity to serve.

If you later register your company to do business in another state, called foreign qualification, that state generally requires an agent there too. Washington’s law, for example, requires a registered foreign entity to designate and maintain one, and California’s application for an out-of-state LLC asks for one. Check each state you register in.

What the states actually require

The details vary by state, which is why this page uses examples rather than one national rule. These are the common threads, in the states’ own words:

• A physical street address in the state. Washington says “PO Boxes or PMBs are prohibited.”
• Someone there during business hours. Delaware says agents “must be generally present at their designated location during normal business hours”; Washington says the same of the registered office.
• The agent’s consent. Washington requires a “signed & dated consent to serve.”
• Who may serve. Usually an individual who lives in the state or a business authorized there. In Delaware, a business physically located in the state “may act as its own Registered Agent”; in Washington, you can be your own agent if you have a physical address in the state.

Being your own agent, or paying a service

Doing it yourself costs nothing beyond the filing. The trade-offs: the address you list goes on the public record (California, for example, shows each business’s agent in its public business search), someone must be there during business hours, and a process server can arrive at your shop in front of customers. If you move or keep irregular hours, papers can be missed.

A commercial service charges an annual fee per state. In return it keeps your home address off the public record, receives papers during business hours, scans and forwards them, and usually sends filing reminders. If your company has no address in a state you register in, a service is often the only practical option.

Neither is wrong. The question is whether you will reliably be at a fixed address in the state every business day for as long as the company exists.

Questions to ask a registered agent service

Prices and features vary widely. We don’t recommend a particular company, and nothing here is an affiliate link.

• What is the price for the first year, and what is it on renewal? Is that per state?
• How fast are documents scanned and forwarded, and how are you told: email, text, or both?
• Do they also offer to file annual reports? What do they charge on top of the state fee?
• What happens if you leave? Do they help with the change filing, and is there a fee?
• Are they listed with the state? Delaware, for example, publishes a list of registered agents.

The official-looking mail to ignore

Once your company is on the public record, private companies send letters designed to look like state notices, offering to file a report or sell a certificate for many times the real fee. California warns that these solicitations “are not being sent on behalf of the California Secretary of State”; its Statement of Information fee is $20 for an LLC, and it says these services charge nearly ten times that. In 2024, Washington’s Secretary of State warned of calls threatening fines and jail, and texts with links and QR codes asking for card details.

The rule is simple: file and pay on your state’s own website, and treat anything that arrives by mail, phone or text asking for money as unofficial until you have checked it there.