What a registered agent actually does
Written by the filing team at FastBusinessFiling. Reviewed .
A registered agent is the person or company designated to receive legal documents and official state mail on behalf of an LLC, at a street address in the state of formation, during normal business hours. Every state requires one. In most states you can name yourself, at no cost, provided you have a street address there — a PO box is not accepted anywhere. Commercial registered agent services, which typically list between $99 and $300 a year, are genuinely useful in two situations: forming in a state you do not live in, and keeping your home address out of a public database. Outside those, the service is optional, and the recurring fee is where most of the formation industry actually makes its money.
The short version
- Every LLC must name one. That does not mean every LLC must buy one.
- You qualify if you have a street address in the state and are available during business hours.
- The agent's address is public. That is the main reason people pay to use someone else's.
- A free first year is a renewal, not a gift. Check the year-two price before you accept it.
- Changing your agent later is a simple state filing, so this is not a locked-in decision.
What the job consists of
Two things arrive at a registered agent. The first is service of process: the papers that start a lawsuit against your company. The second is official state mail, most importantly the annual report reminder.
The state's interest is narrow and practical. It wants a reliable place to hand your company a lawsuit, so that nobody can avoid being sued by being hard to find. That is why the rules insist on a street address and business-hours availability, and why a PO box is refused everywhere.
When being your own agent is fine
You have a street address in the state, you are generally there on weekday afternoons, and you do not mind that address appearing in a public record. That describes a large share of small business owners, and for them the answer is to name themselves and spend nothing.
The failure mode is worth naming, though: if the papers are handed to an address where nobody is home, a lawsuit can proceed without you knowing about it. A default judgment against a company whose owner never saw the summons is not a hypothetical.
When it is worth paying for
Forming in a state you do not live in makes it mandatory in practice, because you need an address there and you do not have one.
Privacy is the other real reason. The agent's address goes on the public register, and for anyone running a business from home that means their home address is searchable by any customer, competitor or unhappy stranger. A commercial agent's address substitutes for yours.
The third case is being on the road. If you are rarely at a fixed address during business hours, delegating is a reasonable purchase.
How the pricing works, and what to watch
Published rates across the big services run from around $99 to around $300 a year. Several include the first year with a formation order, which is where the economics of $0 formation packages live: the loss on the filing is recovered on the renewal, and the renewal is automatic.
The two questions worth asking before accepting a free year are what it costs in year two and what it takes to cancel. Both answers are usually available, and both are usually further from the headline than the headline suggests.
Changing your mind later
Switching agents is a short state filing, sometimes free and usually cheap. Nothing about this decision is permanent, which is a good reason not to agonise over it and a good reason not to accept a long prepayment.
Our service is $99 a year and sits next to a free option to name yourself, which we default to. If you are eligible to be your own agent, taking the free option is the right call and we would rather say so than sell you a subscription you do not need.
Common questions
In every state, yes, provided you have a street address in that state and are available during business hours to accept documents in person. The address becomes part of the public record.
Yes, and many people do. The trade-off is that it becomes publicly searchable, which is fine for some businesses and unacceptable for others. There is no way to have both a home address on file and privacy.
You have to name a replacement promptly. Leaving the position vacant puts the company out of good standing and can lead to administrative dissolution, and the state will not chase you about it for long.
In every state where the company is registered, yes. If you form in one state and register as a foreign LLC in another, that is two agents and two addresses. It is one of the costs people forget when they form out of state.
No. A mail service is not a registered agent unless it is specifically offered as one, and using an address that does not qualify can invalidate the designation. Check what you are buying.
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FastBusinessFiling is a document filing service operated by Fast Filing Group LLC. We are not a law firm or an accounting firm, and nothing here is legal or tax advice. Rules and fees change; where this page states a figure, it carries the date it was checked. For advice about your own situation, talk to a licensed attorney or CPA.